4 Ideas to Explore

1. As Russia Matters reported in the Russia in Review of Aug. 1, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump responded decisively to a statement by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in which Medvedev clarified the existence of Russia’s Dead Hand nuclear retaliation system: “Based on the highly provocative statements [of Medvedev] I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate areas.” Trump’s statement raises additional questions, however, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, which clarified that “the U.S. routinely keeps strategic submarines at sea that carry nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles as part of its nuclear deterrent,” and “it isn’t clear whether Trump was suggesting the U.S. would put more of these submarines to sea or why moving them to other areas of the ocean would add to U.S. nuclear firepower, since the ballistic missiles they carry are of intercontinental range.” WSJ added that “another possibility is that Trump was referring to nuclear-powered U.S. attack submarines that could be moved closer to Russia so they could be used against Russian strategic submarines in the event of a conflict, a former senior Pentagon official said,” according to the newspaper.¹ Predictably, Medvedev responded to Trump’s escalation with a threat of his own Aug. 4: “Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10… He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country,” according to WSJ. Trump then fired back, calling Medvedev “the failed former President of Russia.” The spat between the two men began after Medvedev called a draft U.S. senate bill intended to impose “crushing” new sanctions on Russia “an act of war.” According to The Hill’s Laura Kelly, however, the senate has recessed without bringing the bill, which has bipartisan support, to a vote, “giving President Trump sole discretion over whether to follow through on his threats against Russian President Vladimir Putin if [Putin] refuses to halt his war against Ukraine,” according to Kelly.
2. “Ukrainian forces continue to hold Russian forces to incremental gains, extracting a steep price for territorial gains,” Michael Kofman writes on his X account after a recent trip to Ukraine. Ukraine’s “drone units are a key part of the solution, but by themselves may not be sufficient to stabilize the front,” according to Kofman. “Ukraine needs a mix of hi-low capabilities, steady Western support and investment in its defense sector, alongside necessary reforms to force management, organization and force generation,” he argues. When it comes to Russia’s territorial gains, note that Russian forces gained 105 square miles of Ukrainian territory (the size of one Nantucket island) over the past week (July 22–29, 2025)—just over three times the rate of the previous week’s (July 15–22, 2025) gains, according to RM’s latest estimate.*
3. “China’s ambiguous stance on the war in Ukraine over the past three years reflects … internal division in Beijing,” Da Wei of Tsinghua University argues in Foreign Affairs. “There is no consensus among either Chinese scholars or the general public on how to understand the war—and therefore on how to respond,” according to Da. “The reality... is that China is unlikely to play a central role in resolving the conflict. Any role it would play would be secondary, at most, and limited to participation,” the scholar writes. The prospects for success in peacemaking in Ukraine are “dark,” according to Graham Allison’s Foreign Policy piece, entitled “Is This the Start of a U.S.-China Friendship?”
4. Even though Ukrainian authorities restored the independence of anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO, Ukraine’s “cronyism crisis” constitutes a warning: “the return of the state as a crucial economic actor creates opportunities for cronyism and rentier capitalism,” Luke Cooper writes in Foreign Policy. The fact that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s team “had initially gone ahead with the law” to curb the independence of NABU and SAPO “points to what even some of the country’s supporters call a worsening bunker mentality,” according to the Financial Times editorial board. Ukrainians “need to be sure they are fighting not just for an independent Ukraine, but one that will be governed by democracy and the rule of law,” according to the FT editorial, entitled “Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s unforced error: Abortive attempt to control Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies has damaged trust at home and abroad.”

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

 "For Moscow, the North Korean Alliance With Russia Takes a Turn," Daniel Sneider, Russia.Post, 08.04.25. 

• “Russia has de facto recognized the legitimacy of Kim Jong Un’s concept of the existence of two separate, unfriendly states on the Korean Peninsula and the rejection of the idea of the unification of Korea," Sneider writes, quoting Toloraya.
• “North Korea has now acquired a status that is similar to Belarus, its military and political ally in the West…as an easternmost strategic bulwark of the Russia-led anti-Western security bloc,” Sneider observes, citing Igor Torbakov.
• “Moscow’s backing only serves to reinforce the hardline coming out of Pyongyang toward the US, particularly their fierce rebuff of new overtures from the progressive Lee Jae Myung administration that has come to power in Seoul,” Sneider reports.
• “On the surface, the Russian alliance with North Korea exists in parallel, and even reinforces, the long-standing alliance with China. It may even be seen as a tripartite axis in which all three countries share a goal of reducing the American presence,” Sneider explains.
• “Analysts have pointed to signs that Beijing is less than happy with the burgeoning Moscow-Pyongyang ties, avoiding direct comment on them and signaling indirectly their less than enthusiastic response,” Sneider notes.
• “Russian experts…provide support to the idea that there is a rivalry with Beijing at work. Compared to the security ties with Russia, the long-standing alliance with China, formalized in a 1961 treaty, offers little in terms of security and is a faux alliance,” Sneider writes, referencing Lukin.
• “It’s not inconceivable that Beijing might eventually conclude a Korea unified under Seoul—provided it remains friendly or at least neutral toward China—is preferable to a divided peninsula with its constant risk of major conflict,” Sneider concludes, referring to Lukin’s analysis.

Iran and its nuclear program:

"Will Iran Get the Bomb?" Darya Dolzikova and Matthew Savill, RUSI, 08.04.25.

• “July’s attacks by Israel and the US have set back – without completely removing – Iran’s capability to develop a nuclear weapon. But simply rebuilding the program won’t be enough for a nuclear deterrent,” Dolzikova and Savill write.
• “Despite the Trump White House’s assertions that the military strikes ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear program ... the program has not, in fact, been definitively destroyed,” the authors observe.
• “Recent developments have probably reinforced incentives for Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon... the attacks have made painfully clear the ineffectiveness of Iran’s other capabilities to deter and defend against attacks on its territory,” Dolzikova and Savill note.
• "A nuclear weapon is, after all, not the same as a credible nuclear deterrent. While Iran may have been – and probably still is – within relatively quick reach of the first, it is a long way from the second," the authors emphasize.
• “Acquiring a nuclear capability that could survive a pre-emptive Israeli or US strike... would necessitate possession of a sizeable and distributed arsenal,” Dolzikova and Savill explain.
• “A nuclear capability will remain ineffective so long as Iran has not devised the organizational mechanisms and doctrinal precepts to deploy it,” the authors argue.
• “While the incentives for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon are clear, so are the challenges. However, it is unclear to what extent Tehran appreciates these challenges and what the Iranian leadership may be desperate or delusional enough to attempt if it feels it has no other choice,” Dolzikova and Savill conclude.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• "Farewell to Donbas," Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Alisa Sopova, The Washington Post, 08.03.25.
• For military strikes on civilian targets see the next section.

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

“An update on the war following a recent trip” to Ukraine by Michael Kofman on his X account, 07.31.25.

• “In 2024 AFU expanded drone units within the force. This helped offset Russia’s materiel advantage, while compensating for the AFU’s continued manpower deficit. Drones became responsible for most day-to-day casualties at the front, attriting Russian forces at 0-15km, and serving as the main force multiplier for the AFU. This enabled a low-density defending force to hold the 1200km+ front line, establishing defeat and denial zones.”
• “Russian casualties increased relative to terrain being gained. However, it was unclear whether drones would be enough to stabilize the front line given Ukraine’s manpower challenges, RF ability to replace losses, and if Russian forces could adapt to counter this approach.”
• “Since then, the Russian military began deploying its own offensive ‘line of drones,’ and improving how it employs drone units. Russian Rubicon drone units have spread to every Russian grouping of troops, and are the most spoken of challenge across the front.”
• “This does not mean that Ukraine has lost its qualitative edge in drone employment, but that the advantage has narrowed, Russian forces continue to adapt, and Ukraine must find ways to stay ahead.”
• “The immediate problem is the near envelopment of Pokrovsk, the pocket formed around Kostiantynivka, and the fighting near the Dnipro/Donetsk border by Novopavlivka. Russian units are also trying to stretch AFU manpower with attempts to push in Zap along the Dnipro river.”
• “The Russian military continues to underperform given their overall advantage in manpower and materiel.”
• “The current dynamic is one of lines held by what are often 3-man positions with large gaps in between. ... Russian attacks are sometimes in 4-6 man groups, but in many cases have decreased to numerous 2-3 man sections trying to penetrate in between Ukrainian positions.”
• “Mechanized assaults are now seen much less frequently.”
• “This is not a war of trenches. It is a war of individual fighting positions, fortified and well masked units in tree lines, buildings, basements, or in dense forests. Occupying fortifications in the open is usually considered suicidal by troops.”
• “Overemphasis on drones overlooks that the current dynamic is due to a combination of mining, use of drones, and traditional artillery fires. “
• “Russian tactics do not lend themselves to attaining operationally significant breakthroughs.”
• “Ukrainian forces are increasingly defending in salients, with Russian drone units working to constrain logistical supply to these areas in an effort to collapse the pockets. Hence the geometry of the battlefield lends itself poorly to stabilization. ... The main culprit is a policy to hold onto every meter, even when in near envelopment, or in disadvantageous terrain.”
• “One area where Ukraine remains clearly ahead of Russian forces is UGV employment for logistics, and medivac.”
• “Ukraine is also seeking to close the gap in strike munitions that cover the 30-100km range, and strike systems for operational depths of 300km+ that are much more effective than cheap light drones, i.e. GLCMs and SRBMs.”
• “Bottom-line: Despite the challenges, Ukrainian forces continue to hold Russian forces to incremental gains, extracting a steep price for territorial gains. Drone units are a key part of the solution, but by themselves may not be sufficient to stabilize the front. Ukraine needs a mix of hi-low capabilities (including expanding offensive strike), steady Western support & investment in its defense sector, alongside necessary reforms to force management, organization, and force generation.”

"The New Salvo War: Russia’s Evolving Punishment Campaign," Benjamin Jensen, Yasir Atalan, and Erik Tiersten-Nyman, CSIS, 07.31.25. 

• “Russia has normalized massive, mixed drone missile salvos: The average wave size has risen from about 100 munitions in 2022 to nearly 300 in 2025, while intervals between major strikes have compressed from roughly a month to as few as two days,” the authors report.
• “Russia seeks to impose not only physical attrition but also psychological strain on Ukrainian society, thereby increasing domestic pressure on Kyiv’s government to concede. It is a logic of punishment and a different theory of victory than winning decisive battles along a static frontline,” Jensen, Atalan, and Tiersten-Nyman write.
• “Ukraine must counter with layered, cost efficient defenses: rapidly field high energy lasers and HPMs, expand cross domain early warning networks, diversify low cost interceptors and rapid fire guns, and fuse civil military tracking to decode salvo patterns in real time,” the authors argue.
• “Early battlefield testing by Ukraine and the United Kingdom suggests these [laser] systems can disable drones at standoff ranges of several kilometers. If integrated into Ukraine’s air-defense architecture, lasers could complicate Russia’s calculus—forcing a shift toward more expensive munitions or prompting investment in counter-laser technologies,” the authors note.
• “Ukraine and its international supporters must pursue a multilayered defense architecture. First, cross domain early warning sensors—combining ground radars, manned and unmanned aerial platforms, and satellite data—are vital for detecting and distinguishing simultaneous threats,” Jensen, Atalan, and Tiersten-Nyman explain.
• “Ukraine has already begun deploying systems such as the Sky Sentinel, an AI-powered autonomous turret capable of detecting, locking onto, and neutralizing drones without human intervention,” the authors report.
• “Ultimately, defense is more than stopping drones or missiles. Equally crucial is contesting the narrative. By combining directed-energy systems, layered sensors, diverse interceptors, resilient infrastructure, and real-time tracking, Ukraine can turn Russia’s salvo strategy from an overwhelming tide into a manageable, contested fight—and in doing so, regain the strategic initiative in the skies,” Jensen, Atalan, and Tiersten-Nyman conclude.

"Ever more Ukrainian women are joining the army: A growing group that is changing society," The Economist, 07.31.25. 

• “Unlike men, many of whom are unwilling conscripts, all Ukrainian women under arms are volunteers. They number about 100,000 of the country’s 1m military personnel. ... Some 5,500 are on the front line, says Oksana Grygorieva, a gender adviser to the armed forces. They include medics, drivers, drone crews and others.”
• “Perhaps 20% of the students in military schools are women, says Ms. Grygorieva—a huge shift.”
• “The struggle is to ensure women ‘are not treated like second-class soldiers,’ says Ms. Grygorieva. Formal barriers may have gone but informal ones remain, says Katerina Prymak, head of Veteranka, which campaigns for military women’s rights,” according to the author.
• “There has been no political debate about conscripting women. It might be risky, says Yevhen Hlibovytsky of the Frontier Institute, a think-tank. Ukrainian leaders may ‘fear that the Russians would smell strategic weakness’ if the topic were opened,” the author wrote.
• “With yawning gaps in recruitment, the idea [of conscripting women] cannot be ignored for ever,” the Economist concludes.

“Valerii Zaluzhnyi on the Roots of Identity, the Power of Unity, and the Most Important Historical Lessons for Ukrainians,” Vogue, 07.27.25. Clues from Ukrainian Views. Machine-translated.

• “When we talk about our country and its role today, we are really talking only about ourselves—the people united as the state of Ukraine. There is nothing else—no abstract entity—that can substitute the concept of the state. Everything in it is just us. We, those who live now. And it is we who are responsible for today and for what tomorrow will bring.”
• “So what do we, together, mean for the world? Perhaps first we should tell the world the lessons we’ve learned over these extremely difficult years:
  • Trust in God, but don’t doze off: a society that seeks security must be prepared to pay for it.
  • The spirit that drives the body into battle is the only true measure of strength—even in a high-tech war.
  • You must be friends with your neighbors. And from those who won’t be friends—you must know how to defend yourself. “
  • An enemy who fails to break you on the battlefield will immediately try to break you in the rear.
  • Some of the laws by which war operates are thousands of years old; some are being born right now.
  • When thinking about victory, you must be ready to be alone.
  • The most valuable resource in war is people. Not only because this resource can’t be quickly replenished, but also because it can be mentally lost and rendered useless.
  • When fighting a larger enemy alone, ask yourself: what victory can you achieve now, and what—later? Every decision has its time. And that time is not always now.
  • Every day in war is either a new lesson—or death. It’s better to learn these lessons without war.”

"Shoved into vans, slashing tires: Ukrainians balk at conscription," Fabrice Deprez, Financial Times, 08.03.25. 

• “Ukrainian officials have pledged to improve conscription practices after a series of violent incidents, even as the army is warning of manpower shortages undermining the country’s defense against Russia’s war,” Deprez reports.
• “Videos shared on social media have shown Ukrainian men being picked off the streets and brutally crammed into vans, while angry locals are lashing out at military recruiters,” Deprez writes.
• “Overall in Ukraine, more than 500 probes for obstruction of army activities were opened in the first six months of this year compared with some 200 cases last year in the same period, according to the general prosecutor’s office,” Deprez notes.
• “Similar incidents have occurred in western Ukraine, with villagers in the region of Ternopil last month surrounding a police car accompanying draft officers on patrol,” Deprez observes.
• “Ukraine still has to rely mostly on conscription, with only about 10 per cent of the fresh recruits being volunteers, according to Fedir Venislavsky, a member of the parliamentary committee on intelligence and national security,” Deprez explains.
• “A survey performed in April 2025 by the Info Sapiens social research agency found that 77 per cent of respondents expressed distrust in the draft offices — even as 93 per cent trusted the military as a whole,” Deprez reports.
• “While criticism of drafting offices was ‘framed as a matter of justice, the majority of people understand that we need mobilization and are ready to suffer’, said Anton Hrushevsky, executive director of the independent Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS),” Deprez concludes.       

"Can interceptor drones stop Russia’s terror bombing?" The Economist, 07.29.25.

• “Russia’s mounting drone campaign against the country’s cities is arguably a more serious threat” than its slow-moving ground offensive, The Economist reports.
• “On July 9th over 700 drones, 60% of them carrying warheads and the rest cheap decoys, attacked Kyiv and other targets,” notes The Economist.
• “Swarms of Geran-2s, Russia’s version of the Iranian Shahed kamikaze drone, are starting to overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses,” according to The Economist’s analysis.
• “Since last summer [Russia] has raised monthly production of Gerans five-fold, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence service,” the article says.
• “Russia has been using an upgraded Geran-2 equipped with video guidance systems, artificial intelligence and improved electronics to thwart jamming,” explains Olena Kryzhanivska, a defense analyst, via The Economist.
• “Using million-dollar missiles such as the IRIS-T to shoot down drones that cost $200,000 or less can quickly exhaust high-end air defenses, which are needed to stop ballistic and cruise missiles,” The Economist observes.
• “The most promising solution is cheap interceptor drones,” The Economist writes, citing Ukrainian and European producers.
• “General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, says that interceptor drones have a success rate of 70% against Gerans,” according to the article.
• “Matching Russian production of Shaheds and Gerans is ambitious, but ‘we are really close,’” says Taras Tymochko, a drone expert at Come Back Alive, as quoted by The Economist.
• “Interceptor drones are no silver bullet… For now interceptor drones are the best hope. But in the meantime, the Gerans keep coming,” The Economist concludes.

"How to Lose the Drone War: American Military Doctrine Is Stifling Innovation," Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia Macdonald, Foreign Affairs, 07.31.25.  

• “For a few hundred dollars, drones can now perform missions from scouting the battlefield to delivering blood and medicine to injured troops on the frontlines,” the authors wrote.
• “On the frontlines in Ukraine, both Moscow and Kyiv are using small drones as well as loitering munitions to destroy troops, tanks, and support equipment while relying on the same unmanned aerial vehicles to resupply, triage casualties, and identify approaching enemies,” the authors said.
• “Russia’s volleys of one-way attack drones, missiles, and guided bombs have targeted Ukrainian power and manufacturing facilities,” the authors observed.
• “These drones are no longer operated from afar but embedded into trenches or smuggled deep into an adversary’s territory,” Schneider and Macdonald wrote.
• “The United States has largely missed this revolution in military technology ... the United States’ drone arsenal remains dominated by the larger, more expensive systems it pioneered a decade ago,” the authors noted.
• “It is unclear whether U.S. companies could produce anywhere near the approximately 200,000 drones that Ukraine has been using monthly,” according to the authors.
• “If the United States wants to fight and win wars of attrition—the kind of war in which Ukraine is now using drones to great effect—it will need more low-cost drones attached to combat units that can adapt quickly to counterdrone efforts,” Schneider and Macdonald argued.
• “Without reevaluating the American way of war, no amount of new drones will be able to defend the United States against wars it doesn’t want to fight,” the authors concluded.

See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

• "Drones, Discord, and the Shifting Front in Ukraine," Michael Kofman and Ryan Evans, War on the Rocks, 07.30.25. Podcast.

Military aid to Ukraine: 

"How NATO’s European members can help Ukraine and help themselves," Kurt Volker and Nico Lange, The Economist (By Invitation), 08.01.25. 

• "In July Mr. Trump gave approval for America’s NATO allies in Europe to buy much-needed American weapons and ammunition for transfer to Ukraine," Volker and Lange write.
• "Trump’s move has given NATO an explicit role in acquiring and delivering military aid to Ukraine. This is a sea change, with profound implications for the alliance, for Ukraine and, indeed, for Russia," the authors note.
• "NATO should help Ukraine with its air defenses... NATO can help integrate them and build a comprehensive, multi-layered system of air defense," Volker and Lange argue.
• "Integrating air defenses—with layered interception, rapid command co-ordination and automated response—would boost protection," the authors explain.
• "NATO should also help Ukraine by providing precision-guided missiles and other long-range weapons that can strike Russian airfields, launch sites, new drone gigafactories and command centers—taking out the archers, not just the arrows," Volker and Lange urge.
• "Transforming Ukraine’s air defenses in partnership with NATO would also provide NATO’s European members with the systems and know-how needed to strengthen air defenses for their own people," the authors observe.
• "The steps we propose would show Mr. Putin that he has already achieved his high-water mark in Ukraine, that his position will only worsen from here and that it is time for him to end the war," Volker and Lange conclude.

Punitive measures related to Russia’s war against Ukraine and their impact globally:

 "Putting maximum pressure on Russia requires secondary sanctions on oil," Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 08.02.25. 

• “The inability of Western sanctions to cripple Russia's economy has been one of the most persistent frustrations since Putin's full-scale invasion,” the WP Editorial Board observes.
• “Trump has grown increasingly receptive to using so-called secondary sanctions against Russia's trading partners as a lever to apply maximum pressure on Putin to make concessions,” the Editorial Board writes.
• “On Wednesday, the president imposed an unspecified import tax on India as a penalty for its continuing to purchase Russian oil, on top of a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods. In response, Indian state refineries have reportedly paused purchases of Russian crude,” the authors note.
• “Secondary sanctions are a geopolitical bazooka. They worked against Iran by helping force Tehran to negotiate the nuclear agreement… They also helped cripple the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria,” the Editorial Board argues.
• “Trump's newfound support for secondary sanctions runs counter to his larger goal of reaching a broad trade agreement with China… He has adopted a softer approach toward Beijing,” the Editorial Board observes.
• “Imposing sanctions on China for buying Russian oil would probably derail the chances of an immediate trade deal... It would probably bring retaliation, potentially in the form of another embargo on critical rare earth minerals,” the authors warn.
• “Ultimately, China's economic ties with the U.S. are far more valuable than its friendship with Russia,” the Editorial Board concludes.

"Modi’s ‘True Friend’ Trump Deals India Another Blow With Tariff Threats," Mujib Mashal, The New York Times, 07.31.25. 

• “Mr. Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he was slapping 25 percent tariffs on India, as well as an unspecified additional penalty for India’s economic ties to Russia, was just the latest in a series of slights.” Mashal noted.
• “Analysts and officials in New Delhi say the damage runs deeper: It has thrown off a relationship that has been built painstakingly for decades, one that recognized India’s balancing act in a difficult region where China and Russia loom large.” according to the author.
• “‘One of the attributes of Indian foreign policy in the past 20 or 25 years is that we built an equation, at the leader level and at the systemic level, with America through thick and thin, through multiple transitions,’ said Ashok Malik, the chair of the India practice at The Asia Group and a former adviser to the Modi government. ‘That has been shaken,’” Mashal writes.
• “‘India’s primary challenge is that, for the first time in 35 years, it is faced with an American administration that is not driven by strategic altruism,’ Dr. Pande said,” Mashal reports.

"Charting US Sanctions on Russia: Retrospect and Road Ahead," Aleksei Zakharov, Observer Research Foundation, 08.01.25. 

• “Trump’s threat to slap secondary tariffs on Russian oil buyers—including India and China—signals a dramatic, high-stakes escalation in Washington’s sanctions game, one with global ripple effects and diplomatic fallout,” Zakharov writes.
• “Since assuming office in January 2025, President Trump has been reluctant to impose new sanctions on Russia. Concurrently… his administration has not relaxed any of the previous sanctions on the Russian economy,” the author observes.
• “Trump announced that the US ‘would [impose] secondary tariffs’ if Russia did not stop the war within 50 days. Two weeks later, the US president set a new deadline of 10-12 days, apparently growing more frustrated by the absence of progress on a peace deal,” Zakharov explains.
• “President Trump’s repeated threats to impose ‘secondary tariffs’ unless Russia stops the war have made the bill’s approval a more likely scenario,” Zakharov notes.
• “While the rationale behind the idea to deprive Moscow of revenues from energy exports is clear, its execution may be problematic for several reasons,” Zakharov argues.
• “Trump’s threats are unlikely to make the Russian leadership back off from its positions on Ukraine, given that, as Russian experts point out, it ‘does not act under pressure,’” the author observes.
• “Trump’s choice to introduce ‘secondary tariffs’ could mark a turning point in his second administration and considerably transform the Russia-related sanctions program,” Zakharov concludes.

"What the Next Round of Sanctions Against Russia Should Look Like," Nicholas Fenton and Maria Snegovaya, Foreign Policy, 08.04.25. 

• “Moscow has not only maintained economic growth but also successfully restructured its economy on an impressive war footing,” Fenton and Snegovaya write.
• “It is inaccurate to claim that sanctions don’t work, as Trump mused later this week, but there are ways to make them more effective,” the authors argue.
• “Russia has struggled to get inflation under control, as an overheated economy has pushed domestic demand beyond supply. A major source of inflation is the country’s chronic labor shortage, already an issue before 2022 but exacerbated by war,” Fenton and Snegovaya explain.
• “Russia’s current account remains exposed to the risk of a balance-of-payments crisis, as Russia still relies on an influx of hard currencies from commodities sales to fund its dependence on imports and support the functionally non-convertible ruble,” the authors observe.
• “If sanctions were tightened, Russia could see its resources limited further, potentially strengthening Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table. Sanctions cannot directly stop Russia’s war effort, but they still matter,” Fenton and Snegovaya contend.
• “The U.S. government should threaten credible secondary sanctions—and follow through on implementation—against often smaller financial entities in countries like China or Kyrgyzstan that continue to process transactions connected to sanctioned Russian firms,” the authors recommend.
• “Expanding the breadth of the sanctions regime to weaken other key commodity sales will likely create market disruption, but an approach that is entirely focused on oil will likely yield diminishing returns over time,” Fenton and Snegovaya conclude.

For sanctions on the energy sector, please see section “Energy exports from CIS” below.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

"Trump vs. Medvedev: When talking tough is plain turkey," Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 08.01.25. 

• “Both Medvedev's remarks and Trump's response are pure theatrics. Having refrained from the use of nuclear weapons over the past three years, Russia is obviously not going to launch them in response to a new round of U.S. sanctions — especially since it has successfully overcome several previous rounds,” Lieven writes.
• “Trump is right to ask of his new sanctions, 'I don't know if sanctions bother him [Putin].' This almost amounts to admitting that the new sanctions are pointless in terms of putting pressure on Russia and are really intended to defend Trump against domestic criticism,” Lieven observes.
• "Trump's announced — or alleged — 'deployment' of U.S. nuclear submarines is also completely empty. The U.S. has nuclear submarines capable of striking Russia on permanent deployment," Lieven explains.
• “Medvedev and Trump are both trying to look tough for domestic audiences. The rest of us are not however required to applaud this theatre,” Lieven notes.
• "At the same time, Trump is right to say that words matter, and there should be no place for empty theatrics in a matter as serious as the threat of nuclear war," Lieven argues.
• "President Putin should silence his increasingly erratic and provocative subordinate. Trump should take heed of his own words and moderate his own often overblown language and threats," Lieven writes.
• "Putin for his part is correct to say that 'in order to approach the issue [an end to the Ukraine war] peacefully, we need to have detailed conversations, and not in public.' This would require the Trump administration to prepare a detailed plan for peace and develop a confidential 'back channel'... If such confidential discussions were to have any chance of success, it would also be necessary for the Russian government greatly to moderate its present conditions for a peace settlement," Lieven concludes.

“Visit to Valaam. Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko visited the Smolensk Skete of the Valaam Transfiguration of the Savior stauropegial monastery,” Kremlin.ru, 08.01.25. Clues from Russian Views.

• Putin: “As a matter of principle, waiting is an option if the Ukrainian leadership believes that this is not the right time and that they must wait. Be my guests – we are ready to wait. This is my first point. Second, it is the Constitution of the Russian Federation that defines our political regime, while the existing authorities operate within the strict confines of our country’s Constitution. This is not the case for Ukraine... As for the talks, they are always relevant and important, especially if their goal is to bring about peace. My overall assessment is quite positive.”
• Putin: “As for the question of whether someone is disappointed, all the disappointment stems from heightened expectations. This is a general rule we all know. That said, to settle an issue by peaceful means, you need to hold detailed talks instead of creating publicity. The way forward is to ensure that the negotiating process is private and confidential. This is why Russia suggested creating three groups as you have mentioned. Overall, Ukraine’s response was quite positive. We agreed that we can hold these talks without cameras and without making all this political noise by working in a calm environment while searching for compromises. These groups have yet to get down to business. They have not started their work so far, but overall we believe that the initial reaction from Ukraine was rather positive. For this reason, we expect this process to get off the ground.”
• [When asked: I have a follow-up question. A year ago, you articulated the terms for a lasting truce. Are they still on the table?] Putin: “Of course, it goes without saying that these conditions have not changed. In fact, these were objectives, rather than conditions, since I explained what Russia wanted to achieve. Before that, we kept hearing that it was unclear what Russia wanted. This is why we set forth these objectives in June 2024 at the meeting with the Foreign Ministry’s senior officials. Everything is clear in this regard, and the core message here is that we must eliminate the root causes of this crisis. This is the main objective.”
• Lukashenko: “I fully support someone asking President Putin about the talks and where he stands on the issue of talks. That is a very good question. The President said that talks must be held regardless of the ongoing war. The Americans fought in Vietnam thousands of miles away from home and engaged in talks from day one. The Ukrainians are deluding themselves, as I see, as they demand the impossible. Things they are saying and what Russia is offering – as the President just mentioned – should be discussed at the negotiating table.”
• Putin: “First, what I would like to say in this regard. We have produced the first serial Oreshnik system, the first serial missile – and it has already been delivered to the troops. Now the series is underway. That is the first point. Second. Our specialists – both Belarusian military specialists and Russian experts – have selected a site for future positions, and work is currently underway to prepare these positions. So, most likely, we will finalize this matter by the end of the year.”
• Lukashenko [with regard to the Oreshnik]: “We are not rushing – we are working calmly; there is no need to race ahead. As soon as everything is ready, not just the positions. As you said, building them is straightforward. What is needed are combat equipment, warheads, and missiles – these are not cheap.”
• Putin: “Corruption is a negative societal phenomenon, which is characteristic of many, if not all, countries. There is nothing unusual about it. The question is about the extent of corruption and society’s ability to combat it. ... Here it is clear that Ukraine is a country where corruption has indeed become overwhelming. Can it be combated from the outside?”
• Putin: “Our troops are advancing along the entire line of combat contact – the entire line: in the border zone, in the Donetsk People’s Republic, in the Luhansk People’s Republic, in the Zaporozhzhia Region, and in the Kherson Region – everywhere, on all sectors, more in some places, less in others, but with positive momentum. ... You may have heard reports that Chasiv Yar, a sizeable and strategically important settlement, was captured. Some have already tried to dispute this information, claiming it does not reflect reality. I can assure you with full confidence: it is absolutely true. In fact, while the Defense Ministry announced this only yesterday, this town was captured several days ago.”
• Lukashenko: “Chasiv Yar constitutes the road to Kramatorsk, effectively the center of the special military operation in Ukraine. And what comes next? Why am I saying this? Ukraine today should urgently be requesting the President of Russia: ‘Let us sit down at the negotiating table, let us reach an agreement.’ Otherwise, within a month, or month and a half, two months – I cannot say precisely – there will not even be defensive structures remaining. The Russians will gradually bite off, seize and advance further, reclaiming territory.”
  • Putin: “We will regain it. It is ours.”

"Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s answer to a media question," Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 08.01.25. Clues from Russian Views.

• “It is true that we have regular contacts with our American colleagues at various levels, including telephone conversations between our presidents, contacts between Marco Rubio and me, and through United States Special Envoy Steve Witkoff,” Lavrov stated.
• “The current US administration has revived direct dialogue... Moscow and Washington have been engaged in a meaningful discussion on the Ukraine topic, which has been quite useful and effective,” Lavrov observed.
• “It is thanks to President Donald Trump’s insistence that the Kyiv regime accepted our proposal to resume the Istanbul talks,” Lavrov noted.
• “Three rounds of talks have already taken place. Apart from important humanitarian agreements, we came forward with a proposal to establish working groups on political and military matters. This could be a major step towards a lasting agreement,” Lavrov said.
• “So far, the progress boils down to the fact that our American colleagues have come to realize the existing reality and try taking into account the root causes of the crisis, which sets them apart from the aggressive Russia-hating attitude of the Europeans,” Lavrov argued.
• “The fact that our colleagues in Washington are open to continuing an honest and mutually respectful conversation is also encouraging, since it takes into account the need to make the Ukraine settlement part of an effort to promote pan-European security based on a balance of legitimate interests of all the countries involved in this process,” Lavrov concluded.
• “Vladimir Putin reaffirmed that Russia is ready to launch this conversation while talking to the media in Valaam on Aug. 1,” Lavrov stated.

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

• "Jake Sullivan: Trump not doing diplomacy right," Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, Responsible Statecraft, 05.15.25.
• “How Trump’s Pivot on Ukraine Might Impact the War. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul on the possibilities for peace,” Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy 07.30.25. Podcast.

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

"The Anti-U.S. Axis Isn’t Dead, Just Resting," Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg, 08.01.25. 

• “When America dropped its bunker busters on the I, the C, R and NK notably failed to lift a finger,” Kluth notes.
• “The CRINKs, they argue, share only one interest: hostility toward the U.S. and the ‘order’ it used to represent. Beyond that, their ‘values’ diverge,” Kluth observes.
• “In warning about this CRINK axis, ‘we’re talking about an alignment, not an alliance,’ cautions Richard Fontaine,” Kluth reports.
• “In their own ways, China, Iran and North Korea are all supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine. Pyongyang has gone furthest by sending about 12,000 of its own troops to fight alongside the Russians. Tehran has been supplying drones and other ammunition. Beijing has been more circumspect, providing dual-use technologies that are vital for Moscow’s war effort,” Kluth writes.
• “China has also defanged Western sanctions on Russia by buying the Kremlin’s oil and laundering its money,” Kluth explains.
• “The CRINKs already form a full-fledged propaganda axis,” Kluth asserts.
• “And they each have one another’s back at the United Nations, where China and Russia, as veto-wielding members of the Security Council, come in especially handy,” Kluth points out.
• “The four are also suspected of collaborating in ‘gray area’ hostilities against the West, from cyberattacks to cutting gas and internet cables in the Baltic,” Kluth writes.
• “The biggest fear among American defense strategists, a specter they call ‘simultaneity’… What if the CRINKs opened three or four fronts at the same time, either in coordination or out of opportunism?” Kluth reflects.
• “The main insight is that the axis of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, while still short of a formal alliance, remains a reality that the U.S. must reckon with,” Kluth concludes.

"Trump’s Missed Opportunities Are Piling Up," Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, 07.29.25. 

• “He [Trump] is now attempting the most radical transformation of American politics in the nation’s history, an authoritarian takeover that is well underway and may succeed,” Walt wrote.
• “Trump could have shrunk the United States’ over-extended military footprint, forced U.S. allies to take on a greater share of their defense efforts, and reined in the Defense Department’s bloated military budget, thereby freeing up the resources needed to address pressing domestic needs and reduce an increasing national debt,” the author argued.
• “Instead of gutting federal support for science and attacking higher education [...], Trump could have used the power of the federal government to preserve the United States’ dominant position in scientific research,” Walt stated.
• “China already outspends the United States in research and development, its researchers produce more patents and scientific papers, and it has acquired the dominant role in some key future technologies (such as electric vehicles and clean energy). Trump’s response? A policy of unilateral intellectual disarmament,” the author wrote.
• ”If Trump really wanted to show that he was better at foreign policy than his predecessors, he could have used U.S. leverage to end the genocide in Gaza, adopted a realistic approach to a new nuclear deal with Iran, and used a combination of carrots and sticks to push for peace in Ukraine. Instead, he turned the problem over to amateur diplomat Steve Witkoff, and the result has been more carnage in the Middle East, further tarnishing of the United States’ image (if that is even possible at this point), and more Russian advances,” Walt argued.
• “In short, Trump had a golden opportunity to initiate far-reaching and long-overdue reforms that might have reduced the political divides that are weakening the United States and strengthened its international position. [...] He went the other way, however, and shows no signs of stopping despite rapidly falling approval ratings,” Walt concluded.

"How to ensure America is ready for the next war," Mitch McConnell and Chris Coons, The Washington Post, 08.01.25.

• “On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved our bill that would invest $852 billion in national defense over the next fiscal year by a decisive 26-3 vote.“
• “America's adversaries—principally China, Russia, Iran and North Korea—are investing heavily to blunt our military advantages, threaten our interests and undermine our influence,” McConnell and Coons write.
• “Countering this growing alignment requires strengthening our own alliances and partnerships with smart soft-power investments in global health and humanitarian aid that deny China opportunities to supplant U.S. influence,” the authors state.
• “First, however, it means healthy investments in American hard power. On this front, we have our work cut out for us,” McConnell and Coons argue.
• “There is no substitute for consistent, full-year appropriations that adequately address the growing requirements of our military,” the authors contend.
• “Expanding shipyard and munitions capacity, deepening stocks of critical weapons, adopting new technologies, and recruiting and retaining service members and a skilled civilian workforce will all require increased funding,” McConnell and Coons write.
• “For now, however, we must focus on expanding production capacity for critical munitions—from the most basic artillery rounds to cutting-edge air defense interceptors,” the authors note.
• “China's naval buildup, at astonishing speed and scale, puts America's dwindling capacity to build tomorrow's Navy—or even maintain the fleet we have—in stark relief,” McConnell and Coons observe.
• “Our bill also makes significant investments in quality of life for men and women in uniform, such as major renovations of Marine Corps barracks across many bases and a pay raise of nearly 4%,” the authors explain.
• “Prevailing in any future fight will also draw on the lessons we continue to learn from Ukraine, a place the Army secretary rightly calls ‘the Silicon Valley of warfare,’” McConnell and Coons state.
• “If our colleagues and the administration are serious about defeating tomorrow's threats, then we must start investing in our common defense today,” McConnell and Coons conclude.

"Russia’s War Is Also Cognitive," Nataliya Bugayova, Foreign Policy, 08.01.25. 

• “Russia is using cognitive warfare—a form of warfare that focuses on influencing the opponent’s reasoning, decisions, and actions—to secure strategic objectives that are unattainable through its physical capabilities alone,” Bugayova writes.
• “The ultimate target of Russian cognitive warfare is the opponent’s will to act. To achieve more, Russia needs others to do less,” the author explains.
• “Russia may very well lose if the West leans in to support Ukraine. The combined economies of NATO countries, non-NATO European Union states, and the United States’ Asian allies dwarf Russia’s, among other things,” Bugayova observes.
• “Russia uses all platforms that transmit narratives—media, conferences, international frameworks, diplomatic channels, individuals—as tools of its cognitive warfare. The effort is also supported by physical activities,” the author notes.
• “The Kremlin succeeds in this effort if it persuades others that it is too hard to know the real truth, too hard to resist Russia, and too hard to be sure which side is right and which is wrong,” Bugayova states.
• “Putin lacks the means to achieve his goals, however. Russia is often neither strong enough to impose its will on others nor appealing enough to be a partner of choice,” the author writes.
• “The Kremlin uses cognitive warfare to close gaps between its goals and its means. Its main cognitive effort is making the world accept, and never fight, Russian premises and actions,” Bugayova argues.
• "The Kremlin has also been trying to portray Russia as righteous in order to limit resistance to Russian actions. It invests enormous energy in dismissing and concealing its atrocities," she observes.
• “Russian cognitive warfare is also about trying to conceal weaknesses while discrediting Russia’s targets. Far from the Kremlin’s portrayal of him as an effective war leader, Putin has, in reality, failed to achieve nearly all of his stated military objectives well over three years into the war—despite an estimated 1 million Russians being killed or wounded in the conflict,” the author notes.
• “The key to defending against Russian cognitive warfare is doing so at the level of strategic reasoning while resisting the urge to chase Russia’s tactical disinformation efforts,” Bugayova concludes.

See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

• "Russia, Ukraine, and the Global Order with Fiona Hill," Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, and Fiona Hill, CNAS, 08.01.25. Podcast.

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

 "What Does China Want in Ukraine? Beijing’s Ambivalence Is Limiting Its Role," Da Wei, Foreign Affairs, 07.29.25. 

• “Chinese leaders have made some efforts to help broker a long-term peace deal, but they have not been able to push the conflict closer to a resolution,” Da Wei wrote.
• “There is no consensus among either Chinese scholars or the general public on how to understand the war—and therefore on how to respond,” according to Da Wei.
• “China’s close ties with Russia and its strategic culture have also made it difficult for Beijing to press Moscow to make any concessions that might favor Ukraine,” Da Wei pointed out.
• “China’s ambiguous stance on the war in Ukraine over the past three years reflects this internal division in Beijing,” Da Wei explained.
• “The phrase [‘no limits partnership’] itself is more of a rhetorical flourish than a description of how Beijing sees Moscow,” Da Wei argued.
• “China’s overall lean toward Russia obscures the challenges and contradictions in Beijing’s relationship with Moscow,” according to Da Wei.
• “The reality, however, is that China is unlikely to play a central role in resolving the conflict. Any role it would play would be secondary, at most, and limited to participation,” Da Wei wrote.
• “China’s strategic culture shapes its diplomacy: when a country is broadly aligned with China, Beijing is hesitant to criticize that country’s specific policies—even if it privately disagrees,” Da Wei observed.
• “To this day, and despite Beijing’s insistence that it wants to improve ties with European countries, the war in Ukraine remains the most significant irritant in relations between China and Europe,” Da Wei argued.
• “China has tried to stay neutral or even passive in a war it neither anticipated nor welcomed. But this approach has not reduced tensions,” according to Da Wei.

"Is This the Start of a U.S.-China Friendship? Why all signs are pointing to a breakthrough at the upcoming Trump-Xi summit," Graham Allison, Foreign Policy, 07.29.25. 

•  ““Here’s my prediction for what’s to come: In what they may call a “great rebalancing,” when Trump and Xi finally meet, they will announce advances not only on trade but on other issues, including major investments in energy and manufacturing, a serious Chinese crackdown on exports of fentanyl precursors, a resolution of the TikTok standoff, and promises of Chinese purchases of more U.S. products to reduce the bilateral trade deficit. The two leaders will also talk candidly in private about how they can work together to constrain the provocations of Taiwan’s current government,” according to Allison.
• Allison writes: “If we stretch our minds, it is even possible to imagine that this summit will announce the foundation of a new relationship—maybe even a “partnership”—between the two nations.
• “In assessing Trump’s likely approach to China, there are four principal considerations that many analysts have missed,” according to Allison:
  • First, unlike most of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment, including many members of his own administration, Trump is not a China hawk.
  • Second, Trump believes that a strong U.S. economy is essential for the Republican Party’s success in the midterm elections in November 2026—and that’s required for everything else he cares about.
  • Third, Trump sees himself as the dealmaker-in-chief. As he thinks about his legacy, he aspires to be remembered as a “great peacemaker.” That will not be possible unless he crafts a deal that establishes a productive relationship with China. Given the dark prospects for success in peacemaking in Ukraine and Gaza, Pax Pacifica may be his best chance.
  • Fourth, Trump’s view of Taiwan is more compatible with China’s than any U.S. president since World War II. As reported in memoirs and other reliable sources, during his first term, when the subject of Taiwan arose in the Oval Office, Trump repeatedly compared the tip of a Sharpie with the size of his desk, saying: That dot is Taiwan; the desk is China. He also said: “Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.” Trump reportedly denied Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te permission to stop in New York on a trip originally planned for August, and Reuters reported that Lai is now delaying his trip until “later this year.”

See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

• "After Xi: The Succession Question Obscuring China’s Future—and Unsettling Its Present," Tyler Jost and Daniel C. Mattingly, Foreign Affairs, 08.01.25.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

"Trump Positions Nuclear Submarines Following Threats From Former Russian Leader," Michael R. Gordon, Robbie Gramer, and Alex Leary, The Wall Street Journal, 08.01.25.

• President Trump said he would position two nuclear submarines “in the appropriate regions” in response to recent comments from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, escalating tensions with Moscow as the U.S. pressures Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
• Trump, in a Friday social-media post, criticized Medvedev, who earlier this week said Trump’s threat of new sanctions on Russia is a “step towards war.” “Based on the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances,” Trump added.
• The U.S. routinely keeps strategic submarines at sea that carry nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles as part of its nuclear deterrent. It isn’t clear whether Trump was suggesting the U.S. would put more of these submarines to sea or why moving them to other areas of the ocean would add to U.S. nuclear firepower, since the ballistic missiles they carry are of intercontinental range. Another possibility is that Trump was referring to nuclear-powered U.S. attack submarines that could be moved closer to Russia so they could be used against Russian strategic submarines in the event of a conflict, a former senior Pentagon official said. The U.S. also has nuclear-powered submarines that carry nonnuclear cruise missiles that can be used to strike targets on land, as the U.S. used in its attack on Iran’s Isfahan nuclear facility in June.
• Former U.S. officials and experts outside the government said it was striking that the U.S. president appeared to be engaging in the sort of nuclear signaling that American officials have long criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for doing… “Trump hasn’t attacked Putin, just Medvedev. But moving subs has certainly raised the stakes in what has been just a verbal mud fight,” said Jim Townsend, a former senior Pentagon official on NATO policy.
• Trump’s latest threats come just a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio played down Medvedev’s warnings. “He basically is not a relevant player in Russian politics,” Rubio said of Medvedev in a Fox News interview.
• “If Donald Trump is truly concerned about Russian nuclear weapons, he should engage in a serious negotiation with Russian counterparts to maintain caps on the massive U.S. and Russian arsenals and negotiate concrete measures to avoid nuclear confrontation and slash arsenals,” said Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association, a private group that supports arms control agreements.

“Russia warns against threats after Trump repositions nuclear submarines,” Robyn Dixon, Washington Post, 08.04.25.

• The Kremlin warned Monday against "nuclear rhetoric" after President Donald Trump repositioned two nuclear submarines because of what he called "foolish and inflammatory statements" by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev's rambling comments, in a social media post, included veiled threats referencing Moscow's "Dead Hand" capability of carrying out a nuclear strike on the United States even if Russia's leaders were attacked and unable to issue the order.
• "Russia is very cautious about nuclear nonproliferation matters, and we believe everyone should be very careful about nuclear rhetoric," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday in his daily call with journalists, in which he cautioned against nuclear escalation. Peskov's remarks, the first official statement from the Kremlin about Trump's move, seemed to distance Russian President Vladimir Putin from Medvedev, a longtime prime minister under Putin who now serves as deputy chairman of the country's Security Council. "On the whole, certainly, we absolutely wouldn't like to engage in such polemics, nor would we like to comment on that in any way," Peskov said, responding to a question about Trump's announcement of nuclear submarine movements. "There can be no winner in a nuclear war," Peskov added. "This is probably the key premise we rely on. We do not think there is talk of any escalation."[2]
• Peskov distanced himself Monday from Medvedev's rhetoric, saying that people should look to Putin on matters of foreign policy. "In our country, foreign policy is formulated by the head of state, President Putin," Peskov said. He declined to comment on whether the Kremlin would tell Medvedev to tone down his rhetoric.
• Peskov's effort to play down the confrontation with the Trump administration comes ahead of a likely visit to Russia this week [Aug. 6, 2025] by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who has met Putin four times in a so-far-unsuccessful bid to achieve a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump told reporters Sunday that the submarines are "in the region."
• Last week, responding to Medvedev on social media, Trump denounced the Russian's "highly provocative statements," which he said led him to dispatch the submarines "just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that… Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences," Trump continued, capping an intensifying exchange between the two men, who have long been at odds. "I hope this will not be one of those instances."
• On Friday afternoon, Trump announced he would reposition two nuclear submarines. "A threat was made … so we just have to be very careful," he said Friday, referring to Medvedev, adding: "We're going to protect our people."
• On Friday, Putin said in a comment that appeared directed at Trump that Russia's conditions to end the war had not changed and declared that any disappointment about the peace process was due to "excessive expectations."
• Trump on Sunday reiterated his threat to impose punishing secondary sanctions on Russia oil—meaning that Russia's main buyers, China and India, could be penalized in an effort to cut Russian oil revenue. Russia has been spending 40% of its budget on the military and security forces, amid declining income. "There'll be sanctions, but they seem to be pretty good at avoiding sanctions," Trump said. "They're wily characters and they're pretty good at avoiding sanctions, so we'll see what happens."
• Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov on Sunday wrote that Witkoff's likely visit this week was the "last chance" to reach an agreement between Moscow and Washington before Trump's deadline on a ceasefire expires Aug. 8, 2025.

"Trump says he will reposition nuclear submarines after ‘provocative’ Russian comments," Steff Chávez and Amy Mackinnon, Financial Times, 08.01.25.

• “Donald Trump has ordered the positioning of two nuclear submarines in “appropriate regions” in response to what he described as “highly provocative statements” from Russia. The U.S. president cited the pronouncements from Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s security council, for his most significant action against Moscow since returning to office. “I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Friday.” “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances,” he added.
• “The movements of the U.S.’s nuclear capable submarines were not typically announced publicly, said James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “On a day-to-day basis there is a ton of capability already in the Atlantic and the Pacific able to hit Russia,” said Acton, who cautioned that “we don’t know” whether that has been a change to the U.S. nuclear posture.”
• “Erik Raven, former under-secretary of the U.S. Navy, said: “What this message signals is likely less about U.S. military readiness, and more about what the president wants Russia to know: he is personally not happy about the lack of meaningful progress on peace talks on Ukraine, and the message is being sent not with subtlety but with a sledgehammer.””

"This is how he has fun" Experts on whether Trump's announcement about sending nuclear submarines should worry us,” Elena Chernenko, Kommersant, 08.01.25 [with regards to the exchange of remarks on nuclear weapons by Donald Trump and Dmitry Medvedev last week] Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

• Chairman of the PIR Center Board, Professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and Reserve Lieutenant General of the Russian Armed Forces Evgeny Buzhinsky: “This is more of Trump’s chatter. This is how he has fun. I doubt that he will actually send anything anywhere. American nuclear submarines have their own combat patrol areas, usually the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In my opinion, they are not in the Indian Ocean that often. Of the 14 submarines that they currently have, as a rule, four are on combat patrol. There is no point in adding more, sending them somewhere closer to us, well, they try not to go under the ice, as far as I know, this is, so to speak, our privilege and fun. So I think that this is just chatter.”•
• Researcher at the Center for International Security at the IMEMO RAS Alexander Ermakov: “The U.S. has not two, but four to six missile submarines on combat patrol at the same time. In recent years, the focus has shifted to the Pacific Ocean, but there are always one or two in the North Atlantic. They are always there, including often near Scandinavia, at close range to the European part of Russia. This is the same everyday reality of the last half century, as are our missile men on combat duty. Although, theoretically, additional submarines that are training crews and testing submarines after maintenance can be quickly sent on patrol... I am sure that in practice, Trump did not give any orders and the American fleet does not change its plans for training and combat service because someone argued on social networks.”
• Ilya Kramnik, Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic Planning Studies at the IMEMO RAS: “Unfortunately, the main problem with modern high-level politics is that people from the top leadership of nuclear powers do not always realize what the consequences of their words are. ... The two submarines promised by Trump are 48 missiles with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, with a number of nuclear charges from about 150 to about 380. These numbers tell us little, but let's assume that each such charge is sufficient to destroy an average-sized city of a hundred thousand people. Or to create unbearable conditions in a city of a million.”
• Oleg Krivolapov, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Military-Political Studies at the Institute of the USA and Canada at the Russian Academy of Sciences: “This is a post in Trump's style. The context here is connected not only with any statements by the Russian side, but also with the situation around Ukraine, namely the lack of tangible progress in the negotiations. On the one hand, the concentration of forces and resources in certain regions increases the risk of unintentional clashes. On the other hand, the U.S. political leadership still assumes that nuclear deterrence (through the ability to inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor) works. This means that the U.S. still has little incentive to start first."
• Dmitry Stefanovich, research fellow at the Center for International Security at the IMEMO RAS and co-founder of the Vatfor project: "I think there is no need to worry too much about Trump's statements about submarines. After all, for example, in 2017 he also said that he had sent two nuclear submarines to the Korean Peninsula in connection with Pyongyang's nuclear missile activities… the main problem here is the continuing practice of nuclear signals via social networks. This is a very dubious practice, but, unfortunately, it has already become established."
• Director of the Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics Dmitry Trenin: “It is worth keeping in mind Trump’s impulsiveness. During a real crisis (not today), this could break the thread.”

"80 years since Hiroshima. How much longer can the world’s luck hold?" George F. Will, The Washington Post, 08.01.25. 

• “Hiroshima and Nagasaki effectively ended ‘the first modern conflict in which far more civilians were killed than combatants.’ Which suggests that technological virtuosity advanced as morality regressed,” Will writes, citing historian Antony Beevor.
• “Two atomic bombs probably reduced the war’s quantity of violence and death,” Will notes.
• “Nuclear proliferation could result from President Donald Trump’s McGovernite ‘come home, America’ impulse, his disdain for allies and skepticism about alliances,” Will argues.
• “Nations, from South Korea to Poland, that no longer feel protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella might want their own,” Will observes.
• “Trump’s vice president recently said the eruption of military violence between two implacably hostile nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, was ‘fundamentally none of our business.’ Oh?” Will questions.
• “Any sufficiently determined nation can acquire the know-how to join the nuclear club. Iran has been seriously determined for decades,” Will states.
• “Iran might reasonably think that if Saddam Hussein had acquired nuclear weapons, Iraq would still hold Kuwait,” he writes.
• “Various potential nuclear powers have recently seen Vladimir Putin demonstrate the utility of possessing nuclear weapons: The Russian president has inhibited some forms of assistance to Ukraine by intimating the possible use of such weapons,” Will observes.
• “China's nuclear force doubled between 2020 and 2023… there is ‘an autocratic bloc more cohesive than anything the United States has faced in generations.’ Three members (Russia, China, North Korea) are nuclear powers,” Will notes, citing Hal Brands.
• “What in humanity's carnage-strewn history of honor-driven angers, rational and irrational fears, and ideologically defined interests suggests there will not be a third [use of nuclear weapons], and then others?” Will concludes.

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

• "Even Nuclear Experts Are at a Loss Right Now," Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg, 07.30.25.
• “Trump vs. Medvedev: When Windbags Collide.” Brandon J. Weichert, National Interest, 08.03.25.
• "Trump Ramps Up Ukraine War Pressure With Nuclear and Sanction Threats," CFR Editors, Council on Foreign Relations, 08.04.25. 

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

"Global AI rivalry is a dangerous game," Julian Gewirtz, Financial Times, 24.07.25. 

• “Altman has framed this achievement as part of an existential AI race between the U.S. and China,” Julian Gewirtz notes.
• “Both countries are investing heavily in the technology. But, outwardly at least, they appear to be pursuing different goals,” Gewirtz writes.
• “While U.S. leaders prioritize developing the most intelligent models possible, Chinese policymakers are most focused on AI’s widespread application,” according to Gewirtz.
• “The Chinese Communist party seems far less ‘AGI-pilled’ than their American counterparts,” Julian Gewirtz observes.
• “The term used in China is tongyong rengong zhineng, the precise translation of which is ‘general-purpose AI’. This suggests a system applied to many uses rather than human-level intelligence,” Gewirtz explains.
• “Xi Jinping has emphasized applying AI to practical purposes...consistently saying that China’s AI sector should be ‘strongly oriented toward applications,’” according to Gewirtz.
• “One explanation is that U.S. export controls have seriously inhibited China’s ability to obtain vast amounts of computing power needed for future AI models,” Julian Gewirtz suggests.
• “The perennially secretive CCP might be concealing its interest in AGI. This would not be a new phenomenon,” Gewirtz cautions.
• “There is a profound risk on both sides of ‘technological surprise’—when a rival gains an unexpected technological capability, it can escalate the risk of conflict,” Gewirtz warns.
• “Policymakers around the world are ill prepared to manage these combined strategic and technological developments. ... The coming years will be far more dangerous than many of the technology’s investors and policymakers realize,” Gewirtz concludes.

"Play to prevent: How wargames can map AI-nuclear dangers," Peter Rautenbach, European Leadership Network, 08.01.25. 

• “Researchers found that large language models deployed in simulated nuclear wargames demonstrated significant escalatory tendencies,” Rautenbach writes.
• “Contrary to assumptions that AI will reduce bias and enhance control, these dynamics suggest it may do the opposite. This gap between perception and reality is where danger lies and conflict risk grows,” the author warns.
• “The real-world use of Israel’s ‘Lavender’ AI system raises further red flags… human verification reportedly took as little as 20 seconds, where the human operator did nothing but confirm a target was male before approving the strike,” Rautenbach observes.
• “Experimental wargaming—realistic simulations with controlled variables—offers a powerful tool for investigating how AI could affect nuclear decision-making,” the author explains.
• “Scholars have found that wargaming creates data that better reflects the real world because how people act in wargames better reflects their real counterparts,” Rautenbach notes.
• “Wargames allow us to simulate plausible futures, observe how human-machine teams operate under pressure, and test escalation pathways before real-world crises occur,” the author argues.
• “AI is not just a technical challenge—it’s a human one. If we want to govern its use responsibly, we need to understand how it changes the way we think, choose, and act when the stakes are highest,” Rautenbach concludes.

Energy exports from CIS:

"What Is Rosneft’s Flagship Vostok Oil Project Really Seeking to Achieve?" Sergey Vakulenko, Carnegie Politika, 08.04.25. 

• “Vostok Oil is touted as a major greenfield oil project, but it has—so far—focused on building an Arctic port, and a pipeline from the aging Vankor cluster,” Vakulenko writes.
• “Rosneft shouted from the rooftops about Vostok Oil, including at international conferences, in publications for shareholders, and in press releases about meetings between company head Igor Sechin and Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the author observes.
• “Vankor reached peak production… in 2016. Since then, production has fallen,” Vakulenko notes.
• “At present, Vostok Oil has effectively been reduced to the construction of a transport system to ship oil from the Vankor cluster via a port on the Kara Sea. But there’s actually no need for such a transport network: existing pipelines already allow for oil to be moved out of the Vankor cluster,” Vakulenko argues.
• “Given all this, it is unlikely that any meaningful production could start at the Payakha earlier than 2028,” the author explains.
• “The current plans for the development of the Payakha cluster make little sense. While oil export infrastructure is being built at full speed, basic infrastructure at the drilling sites is lacking,” Vakulenko points out.
• “Either way, we can confidently state that Vostok Oil will not be producing any significant new quantities of oil over the next five years… It’s clear that the initial plans for Vostok Oil were vastly over-ambitious,” Vakulenko concludes.

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

"Russia, Not China, Is America’s Greatest Strategic Threat," Colin Cleary, The National Interest, 07.31.25. 

• “Vladimir Putin is an avowed enemy of the United States who has used all levers of power to undermine U.S. national security and threaten the physical existence of the American people,” Cleary writes.
• “Russia, rather than China, thus represents the most pressing danger to the security of the United States. Deterring and containing Putin’s regime must be President Donald Trump’s top priority,” Cleary argues.
• “What makes the Russian leader so uniquely dangerous is his willingness to resort to nuclear rhetoric, if not the direct use of nuclear weapons so far, in order to achieve policy aims. Xi has never openly threatened nuclear war on the American populace; Putin and his minions do so on a weekly basis,” Cleary observes.
• “Trump’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the war are laudable. But with a negotiated settlement off the table, the White House should instead commit to ending the war through more forceful means,” Cleary writes.
• “The national security strategy of the United States should therefore focus on Russia, not China, as its foremost threat. Putin is presently conducting terrorism on a grand scale. In spite of its many flaws, China is not,” Cleary contends.
• “Once Putin is convinced that continuing the war in Ukraine risks his own destruction, a deal will be possible. But such a deal cannot be built on trust. The Russian leader will violate any agreement he makes when it suits him, unless the costs of doing so are greater than the benefits,” Cleary notes.
• “Vladimir Putin is an avowed enemy of the United States… Putin’s Russia, not Xi’s China, thus poses the most immediate danger to the United States homeland. For that reason, it is incumbent on U.S. leaders to make stopping Putin priority number one,” Cleary concludes.

"Deeper U.S. Cooperation With Russia Is Coming in the Arctic," Christopher McKnight Nichols and Eda Ayaydin, Foreign Policy, 08.04.25. 

• “The new tariff threat represents a dramatic escalation in Washinton’s willingness to challenge Moscow. But the Trump administration’s tougher posture toward Russia bears sizable risks,” Nichols and Ayaydin write.
• “A U.S. policy that isolates Russia more, or even entirely, has the potential to accelerate Sino-Russian coordination in the Arctic, undermining the balance of power along key Arctic routes and threatening Nordic allies,” they argue.
• “For at least the past four decades, the United States’ Arctic policy has been shaped less by direct confrontation than by forms of restraint,” Nichols and Ayaydin observe.
• “If the United States was to pursue a purely confrontational approach in the Arctic, it risks eroding the very mechanisms that prevent escalation. Arctic deterrence depends less on domination and more on management: mutual awareness, limited cooperation, and crisis avoidance,” they explain.
• “The Arctic should be treated as a strategic exception, not as a blank canvas onto which global rivalry is simply projected. A rigid, punitive Russia policy risks undermining long-term U.S. interests in the High North,” Nichols and Ayaydin contend.
• “If the United States severs channels of engagement, it risks accelerating Russia’s dependence on China...it could leave the United States outmaneuvered in a strategic environment that it helped build,” they warn.
• “Preserving selective cooperation isn’t a concession, it’s a strategy—one that protects U.S. leverage, manages regional risks, and helps contain a rising China,” Nichols and Ayaydin conclude.

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

 "Putin Is Obsessed With Something He Can’t Get," Alexander Baunov, The New York Times, 07.29.25. 

• “Vladimir Putin, in his own telling, is no ordinary leader. He’s a lawyer on the throne,” Alexander Baunov writes.
• “For a dictator like Mr. Putin, who rose from the disciplined ranks of the security services to the presidency by following orders, it is just as important to be able to cite the law as to break it,” Baunov observes.
• “The endless expansion of the legal order in service of one man’s power eventually calls for a higher justification. Indeed, Mr. Putin’s entire political career has been a search for a source of legitimacy deeper than the law itself,” Baunov explains.
• “This, as much as conquest, is what drives his war on Ukraine: The aim is to turn military victory into Russia’s return ticket to the club of the world’s great powers. But that remains impossible without recognition from the West,” according to Baunov.
• “Legitimacy is a perennial problem for dictators. However strong they may appear, they always suffer from a deficit of it,” Baunov notes.
• “In the early years of Mr. Putin’s tenure, this worked. He held court with Western leaders and won victories in the second Chechen war. But when his decision to return to the presidency in 2012 set off major protests, he began a new fight for so-called traditional Russian values against corrosive Western influence,” Baunov recounts.
• “Even after the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin still pursued negotiations — most notably the Minsk agreements — aiming to end diplomatic isolation and reclaim its seat at the table of major powers,” Baunov writes.
• “For all its uncompromising talk, the Kremlin has already retreated from some of its extreme positions,” Baunov observes, noting Russia’s shifting negotiation stance in 2025.
• “The Kremlin clearly sees [negotiations] as a venue where it can claim a victory that has so far eluded it on the battlefield,” Baunov explains.
• “Mr. Putin appears to be caught in the same dilemma, between seizing as much as possible and legitimizing at least part of what has been taken. Like Stalin, after similar doubts, he is likely to make the same choice — trusting only in force, not the West, to secure his gains. That might be a victory of sorts. But it wouldn’t be what he wants,” Baunov concludes.

"A Not-So-Harmonious Choir of Loyalists: Why and on what issue Russians disagree with Putin," Re: Russia, 07.24.25. 

• “Public opinion surveys in Russia... record a gradual demobilization of public sentiment regarding the war, a further shrinking of the group of its consistent supporters, and a low belief in the ability of the Russian army to bring the conflict to an end through decisive military success,” the authors of Re: Russia reported.
• “One of the key characteristics of Russian public opinion, as reflected in mass surveys, is the presence of a fairly large group of ‘loyalists’ who are willing to toe the Kremlin line as it is conveyed by official propaganda,” the analysis explains.
• “A significant majority of Russians (around 60%) support the scenario of an immediate ceasefire without preconditions, followed by negotiations. That is precisely the scenario that the Western coalition and Volodymyr Zelensky advocated for in the spring, and which Putin firmly rejected,” according to the Re: Russia analysis.
• “Polls demonstrate the loyalty of Russians to the way the Kremlin presents its position to them, rather than to the position it actually holds,” the authors observe.
• “With regard to the success of military operations... compared with February 2025, the share of those who believe that military operations are developing successfully for the Russian army has risen from 61% to 67%; however, the share of those who consider them unsuccessful has remained unchanged since February, at 23%,” the report notes.
• “Only 24% of respondents believe that the ‘military operation’ will end this year, while 67% doubt it... around 40% of respondents call the offensive successful yet do not believe that these successes will lead Russia to ‘victory’. Here, trust in the official line appears limited or divided,” Re: Russia writes.
• “In the latest survey, the share of those who believe that Russia should now move to peace talks rather than continue military operations has grown slightly... to 50%. However, over the long term, Russian Field surveys since autumn 2023 show that the share of supporters of peace negotiations hovers around this level,” according to the analysts.
• “82% of respondents would support a decision by Vladimir Putin to halt the ‘military operation’ and sign a peace agreement, and only 12% would oppose it... the group of die-hard supporters of the war, who consider the complete achievement of its officially stated goals essential, has been steadily contracting,” the report finds.
• “Another sign of demobilization is the significant decline in the share of Levada Centre respondents ready to justify Russia’s use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine: from 39% in November 2024 to 24% in June 2025,” the article reports.
• “A solid majority of Russians support the position of the Western coalition and Volodymyr Zelensky, diverging from Putin in their views on how the war should be brought to an end,” the analysts conclude.

"Russians Are Tired of the War, But Do Not Want to Make Concessions to End It," The Moscow Times via Russia.Post, 07.29.25. 

• “In early February, 49% of Russians surveyed by Russian Field believed the war with Ukraine would end in 2025…by late June…the share…had halved to just 25%,” the author writes.
• “Back in March…Trump’s diplomatic blitz…had made ordinary Russians…optimistic again. He gave them hope for a swift and favorable…end to the war,” the author explains.
• “Now, the mood of cautious openness to compromise seen last year is beginning to come back,” the author notes.
• “Despite all the hostility toward Ukraine, public support for peace talks with the Ukrainians has again risen. In June, 50% of respondents favored negotiations, while 39% supported continuing the ‘special military operation’ without seeking a ceasefire,” the author observes.
• “The fact that Russians view their great-power state as peace-loving and constructive is reflected in responses to a rather ambiguously phrased question: ‘who is now more interested in peace talks, Russia or Ukraine?’ A clear majority – 60% versus 24% – say Russia,” the author writes.
• “Support for the idea of coexistence with a sovereign Ukraine as it was before the war remains as marginal as ever: just 11% support a return to the 1991 borders (78% opposed) and only 18% favor giving back any Ukrainian territory (72% opposed),” the author notes.
• “The public’s growing weariness with the war is not translating into greater willingness to compromise. The only thing rising is the desire to stop the bloodshed,” the author concludes.

"‘The Message to the Elite is Clear: Their ‘Protection’ Has Ended,’" Alexei Stepanov, Russia.Post, 07.31.25. 

• “Most media outlets have linked Starovoit’s death to allegations of large-scale corruption: an investigation is ongoing into embezzlement of funds allocated for the construction of defensive fortifications in Kursk Region during the Ukrainian incursion,” Stepanov reports.
• “The Kremlin responded to Starovoit’s death with marked restraint. Press Secretary Dmitri Peskov said only that suicide cases ‘cannot help but shock normal people,’ declining to elaborate further,” Stepanov observes.
• “He regards the presence of top government officials at Starovoit’s funeral as a ‘demarche’ against the methods used by the siloviki. According to Venediktov, it was these methods that drove Starovoit to kill himself,” Stepanov notes.
• “Putin deliberately refrained from taking a clear side. On the one hand, he dismissed Starovoit; on the other hand, he did not use the phrase ‘loss of trust,’ which typically signals serious problems with an official. ‘Putin also sent a funeral wreath. However, when a state news agency reported on this gesture, the story was quickly taken down,’” Stepanov writes, quoting Venediktov.
• “Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky also sees Starovoit’s dismissal and death as evidence of the growing political influence of the siloviki… This, Belkovsky argues, indicates that Starovoit had already been written off as a failure, above all for his inability to ensure the defense of Kursk Region,” Stepanov observes.
• “Belkovsky adds that the entire system of governance is increasingly driven by the logic of militarization, which extends beyond the defense sector and into the entire executive branch, including transport,” Stepanov reports.
• “From this moment on, the message to the elite is clear: their ‘protection’ (bron’) has ended. Whereas previously they could, in the worst-case scenario, expect dismissal or criminal charges, now the ultimate punishment may come into play,” Stepanov concludes, quoting Baunov.

"Putin's Outdated Image Lays Bare Russia’s Flawed Political Decision-Making Process," Andrey Pertsev, Carnegie Politika, 07.25.25. 

• “For more than two decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin has cultivated an image as a strong leader… a carefully curated public persona has always been a key element of Putin’s popularity,” Pertsev writes.
• “In part because Putin is now an elderly man, however, his image now seems outdated… As a result, both domestic and foreign audiences find themselves digesting the spectacle of an old man who is obviously out of touch with reality,” the author observes.
• “In recent months, Putin’s appearances have regularly included strange and sometimes inappropriate pronouncements peppered with impolite expressions,” Pertsev notes.
• “Equally embarrassing are Putin’s comments suggesting he does not grasp the real state of affairs in Russia,” the author explains.
• “Almost imperceptibly, Putin has become something of a caricature of an elderly man who likes to tell stories, gives unsolicited lectures, pretends to be young, and complains about life,” Pertsev summarizes.
• “It would be logical for the Kremlin to try to come up with a new public persona for Putin now that he is in his seventies… However, either no one has ever suggested to Putin that he cultivate such an image, or he has rejected the idea,” Pertsev argues.
• “A failure to accept what’s happening risks turning Putin into a joke, and exposes serious problems with the political decision-making process in Russia. It’s increasingly clear that no one around Putin is willing to alert him to his own mistakes,” Pertsev concludes.

"‘Our Dear Friends in Moscow’: Propaganda and the Press," Douglas Smith’s review of Andrei Soldatov’s and Irina Borogan’s book, The Wall Street Journal, 08.04.25. 

• “‘Our Dear Friends in Moscow’ is a searing and sobering book that captures the profound cynicism and xenophobic nationalism that define contemporary Russia,” Smith writes.
• “Things changed once Russian president Vladimir Putin began to suffocate the independent media and civil society in the early 2000s,” Smith notes.
• “For a while it seemed that the regime would allow liberal journalists some space in which to work…But Mr. Putin did not go away, and the repression intensified. Mr. Soldatov, Ms. Borogan and their friends had to decide whether to resist and join the opposition or to surrender and join the Putin propaganda machine,” Smith explains.
• “With the death of a free press, journalists hoping to make a decent living had little choice but to work for state media and get in line with official ideology. But money was only part of it. For many, the message was as important. Mr. Putin's revanchism struck a chord with Russians…who shared a view that the collapse of the Soviet Union had been a tragedy, one brought about by an evil West and its agents,” Smith observes.
• “Mr. Soldatov and Ms. Borogan focused their reporting on the security agencies, especially the FSB…they revealed the degree to which Russia under Mr. Putin had been captured by the FSB and turned into a repressive police state,” Smith reports.
• “After uncovering the role of an FSB officer in the assassination of the brave journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Mr. Soldatov and Ms. Borogan were fired by their own newspaper…Their bosses sacrificed Mr. Soldatov and Ms. Borogan to save their careers and the publication. After that, no one would hire them,” Smith writes.
• “The war has deepened Russia's isolation and established, they observe, ‘new rules for Russian society. Those rules consist of the acceptance of unrestrained and arbitrary violence from the state . . . and the loss of basic freedoms,’” Smith concludes.

"Derk Sauer, western media magnate in Russia, 1952-2025," Simon Kuper, Financial Times, 08.03.25. 

• “Derk Sauer discovered that Russia was an entrepreneur’s dream: a giant market with almost no consumer products,” Kuper writes.
• “In the early 1990s, he founded The Moscow Times, an English-language news outlet that endures to this day, as well as the Russian editions of magazines including Cosmopolitan and Playboy,” Kuper notes.
• “He started life on Amsterdam’s Stalinlaan, which was later renamed after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. He rebelled against his conservative father, who ran a pension fund, but identified with his mother’s cousin, a wartime Resistance hero,” Kuper observes.
• “In 1992 he launched the English-language The Moscow Times newspaper initially based at the Radisson Slavyanska hotel, where he resembled a bespectacled scoutmaster among his eager young journalists,” Kuper reports.
• “Independent Media offered western-style newsrooms and professional standards for generations of Russian journalists,” Kuper writes.
• “He deplored Vladimir Putin’s growing authoritarianism, but stayed in Russia for the deep friendships, long winters with cross-country skiing, and daily excitement,” Kuper explains.
• “He divided his Moscow life into three periods: ‘unlimited optimism’ in his first years, followed by ‘unlimited consumption’, and then ‘cynicism’. But on February 24, 2022 came horror, with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” Kuper writes.
• “He died after injuring his back when his sailboat hit an underwater rock. He is survived by his wife Ellen, his three sons who dream in Russian, and The Moscow Times.”

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

• “Derk Sauer, 1952-2025,” The Moscow Times, August 2025.
• "Derk Sauer, an independent force in Russian media, dies at 72," Catherine Belton and Francesca Ebel, The Washington Post, 07.31.25.
• "‘Attitudes Toward Putin Are a Reverse Expression of Incapacity’: Sociologist Lev Gudkov Explains Why Russians Still Support Putin", Lev Gudkov, Republic.ru, 07.31.25. In Russian.
• "Have Russians Really Cut Back on Drinking?" Tatiana Rybakova, Russia.Post, 07.22.25.
• "Is Russia Falling Apart?" Janusz Bugajski, The National Interest, 08.03.25.

Defense and aerospace:

"Russia Marshals its Strength for Zapad-2025," Maksym Beznosiuk, CEPA, 08.04.25.

• “Zapad-2025 is expected to be the largest Russian-Belarusian drill since 2021, with preparations already underway. While Moscow and Minsk describe this upcoming exercise as defensive, its structure, use of forward-deployed forces, and well-honed Russian propaganda about supposed threats… indicate a growing readiness for high-intensity conflict,” Beznosiuk writes.
• “A substantial Russian military build-up on the Eastern flank, with new bases and equipment flowing to units despite the continuing war against Ukraine… indicate a more confrontational stance toward the Euro-Atlantic community,” Beznosiuk observes.
• “The Kremlin’s military is reconstituting and growing at a much quicker pace than most analysts had anticipated, and Russia has ‘a military larger than it was at the beginning of the war, despite suffering an estimated 790,000 casualties,’” Beznosiuk cites Gen. Cavoli.
• “Zapad-2025 must be viewed… as part of an intensifying strategy to rehearse and prepare for potential ground escalation on NATO’s Eastern flank beyond Ukraine,” Beznosiuk explains.
• “For many in Poland and the Baltic States, Zapad-2025 appears less a routine drill than a rehearsal for a future blockade or invasion,” Beznosiuk notes.
• “Recent years have seen the Kremlin expand its military units and build railways on the border with Finland, Norway, and Estonia, indicating potential conflict preparation. The Kremlin has also bolstered… long-range missile units, air defenses, and aviation assets, in Belarus,” Beznosiuk reports.
• “Zapad-2025 presents a complex multi-dimensional challenge for the European and Euro-Atlantic community. Western leaders must… be ready to counter associated hybrid pressure campaigns aimed at undermining their democratic cohesion,” Beznosiuk concludes.

 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:

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

"Ukrainians' Anticorruption Victory; Kyiv fixes a mistake, as protests show it remains politically accountable," The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal, 08.03.25. 

• “Ukraine passed a law Thursday to restore the independence of two key anticorruption institutions, which is a positive end for the country's biggest political crisis since Russia invaded in 2022,” the Editorial Board writes.
• “Lawmakers voted on July 22 to give a presidential appointee control over Ukraine's anticorruption prosecutor's office and the National Anticorruption Bureau. Mr. Zelensky argued he was trying to clear out Russian influence,” the Editorial Board notes.
• “The Ukrainian public saw the danger. If safeguards against corruption are seen as faltering, Western partners will be less inclined to send weapons for the front lines and provide financing for domestic Ukrainian arms production,” the Editorial Board observes.
• “Backsliding on good governance would also jeopardize Ukraine's hope of eventual European Union accession,” the Editorial Board warns.
• “Allegations of wartime corruption are politically corrosive, and Ukrainians knew the Kremlin would try to exploit the change to sow division,” the Editorial Board explains.
• “Thousands of people in cities across Ukraine peacefully protested the law, forcing the government to backtrack last week,” the Editorial Board reports.
• “Mr. Zelensky's quick signing of the reversal also illustrates that even under martial law Ukraine's leaders are accountable to its people,” the Editorial Board concludes.

"Ukraine’s Cronyism Crisis Offers a Warning to the ‘De-Risking’ World," Luke Cooper, Foreign Policy, 07.29.25. 

• “Ukraine’s wartime economy is defined by the massive mobilization of resources for the war effort, funded by tax revenue mobilization at home and large-scale inflows of external assistance from allies,” Luke Cooper explains.
• “The return of the interventionist state is long overdue, [but] how to manage the relationship between state and capital is not straightforward and involves various threats to the broader public interest,” Cooper observes.
• “These problems are posed particularly sharply for a country like Ukraine that has long had a problem of public institutions being captured by private interests,” according to Cooper.
• “A series of recent scandals has thrown [the strength of Ukraine’s public institutions] into question,” Cooper notes.
• “The Ukrainian government has blocked the appointment of an anti-corruption investigator to lead the Bureau of Economic Security, an agency that has been accused of extorting private businesses,” Cooper writes.
• “It has engaged in the apparent persecution of prominent anti-corruption activist Vitaliy Shabunin, leading to 100 Ukrainian and international nongovernmental organizations…to protest directly to the president,” Cooper reports.
• “Most egregiously—it has effectively destroyed the independence of the country’s anti-corruption agencies,” Cooper asserts.
• “For a world that is turning toward ‘de-risking’…Ukraine’s experience provides a warning: that the return of the state as a crucial economic actor creates opportunities for cronyism and rentier capitalism,” according to Cooper.
• “Last year’s privatization of the United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC) is equally illustrative of some of these problems,” Cooper writes, referencing controversy over a strategic resource.
• “To recover its position, Kyiv should refocus its strategic narrative around strengthening public institutions, setting out to cultivate what Gabor calls a ‘national security state’ in the face of Russian aggression,” Cooper concludes.

"Democracy Is Ukraine’s Most Powerful Weapon," Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy, 07.24.25.

• “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s most ardent supporters sometimes depict him as a new Winston Churchill. It is not hard to understand why. Both men demonstrate innate understanding of the stagecraft and symbolism of modern politics,” Christian Caryl writes.
• “Even at his most forceful, Churchill still made a point of sharing power,” Caryl observes, contrasting the wartime leaders.
• “The Ukrainian president’s imperious decision on Monday to impose control on the country’s independent anti-corruption investigators has triggered the biggest public protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022,” Caryl reports.
• “The scale of that popular backlash reflects a widespread perception that Zelensky has become increasingly isolated from society at large, not least due to his propensity for rule through a small coterie of loyal advisors,” according to Caryl.
• “‘The source of power in Ukraine is the people of Ukraine,’ Daria Kaleniuk, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, told me…‘He didn’t expect that there would be such an outcry in society in response to his act to demolish anti-corruption organizations.’”
• “Zelensky’s law attempted to subordinate both agencies to the country’s chief prosecutor, abolishing their independence,” Caryl explains.
• “An editorial in the Kyiv Independent… warned that Zelensky’s assault on the anti-corruption bodies was just part of a larger and more ominous trend: ‘The move isn’t an isolated incident, but part of a massive crackdown,’” Caryl notes.
• “During my visits to wartime Ukraine over the past two years, I’ve heard many concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions,” Caryl shares from personal experience.

“It is precisely the country’s strong culture of bottom-up activism and civic pride that has made it so hard to defeat. Ukraine and its democratic institutions have survived precisely because ordinary Ukrainians have been so quick to take to the streets and the battlefield to defend them,” Caryl argues.

“Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s unforced error,” Editorial Board, Financial Times, 07.24.25. 

• “For much of Ukraine’s post-Soviet history, alongside Russia’s attempts to re-establish its influence, corruption has been a cancer gnawing at the country’s institutions,” the FT editorial board observes.
• “Even in the midst of war with its neighbor, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy rushed through a law last week eliminating the independence of two anti-corruption bodies, thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets,” the editorial board reports.
• “The president quickly appeared to understand the scale of his blunder and backtracked; the country’s parliament will vote this week on a law reversing the changes. But the damage will not be quickly undone; many Ukrainians see the episode as symbolic of the government’s authoritarian leanings, or at least excessive centralization of power,” according to the editorial board.
• “The law fast-tracked through parliament and signed by the president last Tuesday touched a nerve. It granted his office greater control over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, both set up in the wake of the 2014 Maidan protests,” the editorial board writes.
• “Ukraine’s president justified the move against Nabu and Sapo by suggesting they had been penetrated by pro-Russian interests. But he offered no evidence,” the FT editorial notes.
• “Many in Ukrainian civil society — which has once again displayed its vibrancy — suspect the law was motivated by the fact that corruption probes have closed in on figures close to the presidency,” the editorial board asserts.
• “As well as inflaming domestic opinion, the law jeopardized Ukraine’s EU accession process, and potentially financial support from the EU and the IMF on which Kyiv is entirely dependent,” according to the FT editors.
• “Zelenskyy quickly reversed course, saying he would submit a new bill to parliament that would guarantee the agencies’ autonomy. But the fact that the presidential administration had initially gone ahead with the law…points to what even some of the country’s supporters call a worsening bunker mentality,” the editorial notes.
• “There is no suggestion of personal wrongdoing by the president — and he is not, as President Donald Trump claimed in February, a ‘dictator,’” the editorial board clarifies.
• “Most importantly, Zelenskyy will need to repair the damage with his own people. Ukrainians have shown extraordinary courage in the past three years. They need to be sure they are fighting not just for an independent Ukraine, but one that will be governed by democracy and the rule of law,” the editorial concludes.

"Parliament restores independence to Ukraine’s corruption-fighters: A botched attempt by the government to rein them in has badly backfired," The Economist, 07.31.25. 

• “Ukraine’s latest political drama ended with what felt almost like an anticlimax. In two swift readings on July 31st, Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, passed a bill restoring the full independence of the country’s anti-corruption bodies,” The Economist reports.
• “The volte-face was driven less by any deeply felt change of heart than by fear of the consequences,” the author observes.
• “After parliament passed a law on July 22nd reining in the anti-corruption agencies, protesters filled Ukraine’s streets. The country’s Western allies, who bankroll its government, made thinly veiled threats to withhold funds,” The Economist writes.
• “In the weeks before the vote on July 22nd a struggle for control had been building between President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration and Ukraine’s various anti-corruption institutions,” the author explains.
• “On the eve of the bill’s surprise introduction to parliament, swat teams conducted raids at the homes and offices of roughly 80 detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Some of the detectives say they were beaten up without provocation,” The Economist notes.
• “The raids came as many of the same detectives were conducting investigations against people in the president’s inner circle,” the author points out.
• “Sources say Andriy Yermak, Mr. Zelensky’s chief aide, led the efforts to fend off prosecutions,” The Economist reveals.
• “The rollback is a clear win for Ukraine’s democracy. It continues to function despite the war and despite some signs of creeping autocratic tendencies,” the author contends.
• “Restoring the agencies’ legal independence does not remove the underlying problems that led to the crisis. These include the government’s determination to protect loyalists above all else, and its hyper-centralized decision-making process, which revolves around Mr. Yermak,” The Economist warns.
• “The detectives will investigate according to the laws, but they won’t give an inch now. Things have changed,” the author concludes, quoting a source close to NABU.

"Ukraine slides back," Ben Hall, Financial Times, 07.26.25. 

• “In its war against autocratic, imperialist Russia, Ukraine is fighting for the future of European liberal democracy, as Martin Wolf wrote powerfully this week. At the very same time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is destroying vital checks and balances that Ukrainians and their western, although not necessarily American, backers demand from Kyiv,” Hall writes.
• “On Tuesday, Zelenskyy terminated the operational independence of two anti-graft bodies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (Nabu) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo). The vote was rammed through parliament in an emergency session,” the author reports.
• "The move triggered the most serious political crisis since Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 and the biggest public protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022," Hall observes.
  “As the backlash grew, Zelenskyy ordered a retreat, promising new legislation to restore the agencies’ independence, but the damage to his reputation at home and abroad was done,” Hall notes.
• “Nabu was set up in the wake of the 2014 Maidan revolution that toppled Ukraine’s corrupt, pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych. Sapo was created the following year to oversee and prosecute Nabu cases... Autonomy is essential in a country where investigations and prosecutions are (still) easily manipulated by politicians and officials to help friends or take down enemies,” the author explains.
• “In his nightly video message on Tuesday, Zelenskyy claimed the neutering of Nabu/Sapo was necessary to ‘clear’ them of Russian influence. Subversion by Russian agents is not impossible. But there is scant evidence,” Hall writes.
• “There has been no attempt to create a government of national unity or even to consult the opposition on decisions. Competent but independent-minded officials have been replaced with yes-men and women. Ministers who become too popular are deemed a threat,” Hall states.
• “Zelenskyy’s nobbling of Nabu has all the hallmarks of a power grab orchestrated by Andriy Yermak, his hugely influential chief of staff and de facto deputy,” the author reports.
• "With the US no longer interested in upholding democratic and good governance standards abroad, Zelenskyy’s team may have seen a chance to act. But America is no longer paying Ukraine’s bills; Europe is. The Europeans will have to stump up the bulk of a $19bn shortfall looming in Ukraine’s budget next year. It is hard to see them doing so without insisting on the full restoration of Nabu’s autonomy," Hall writes.
• “Zelenskyy’s courageous, resilient leadership in Ukraine’s fight against Russian tyranny put him on a pedestal for democracy; this week, he tumbled from it,” Hall concludes.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

"A Peace Deal for Armenia and Azerbaijan," Steve Daines, The Wall Street Journal, 07.30.25. 

• “President Trump is on the cusp of bringing about a peace deal in the South Caucasus between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Steve Daines writes.
• “This would be a remarkable achievement—another step toward stability that advances regional and international peace as well as economic gains that extend far beyond the countries involved,” Daines observes.
• “Once parts of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a state of low-grade conflict with sporadic bouts of major violence since the late 1980s,” Daines notes.
• “The Trump administration has made progress by combining the president's peace-through-strength model with pragmatic, creative diplomacy and the promise of brighter days for both sides,” according to Daines.
• “I traveled to both countries with members of Mr. Trump's team. We explored the region’s economic potential and facilitated conversations on some of the peace talks’ more difficult issues,” Daines reports.
• “For too long Russia served as the regional power broker, a position it used to perpetuate conflict and keep its southern neighbors weak and isolated,” Daines argues.
• “Now, Armenia and Azerbaijan are shedding the yoke of Russian domination and turning toward an independent vision that aligns with U.S. priorities,” Daines writes.
• “The Middle Corridor's geography affords it unique strategic and economic importance...it is the only sliver of land where trade to the West can flow unhindered from Central Asia,” Daines explains.
• “There are also economic and national-security benefits to Armenia and Azerbaijan to securing peace. Joint investment will bring jobs and financial stability,” Daines asserts.
• “The Trump administration's resolve has helped create a historic opportunity for these two nations…This pending agreement will alter the course of geopolitics in a way that benefits not only the South Caucasus and Central Asia but the U.S. and our allies for decades to come,” Daines concludes.

"Central Asia: The Great Game 2.0," Josef Braml and Mathew Burrows, The National Interest, 07.30.25. 

• “A new ‘Great Game’ is unfolding in the Caucasus and Central Asia, echoing the nineteenth-century rivalry between empires, with a modern, multipolar twist,” Braml and Burrows write.
• “Today’s Russia, preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, is struggling to retain influence, block Western and Chinese expansion, and secure trade routes in the region,” the authors observe.
• “The shifting power dynamics in the South Caucasus are dramatically reshaping energy routes, and the region’s role as a strategic crossroads between Europe and Asia is more pronounced than ever,” Braml and Burrows note.
• “Russia’s failure to support Armenia during the 2020 and 2023 Karabakh conflicts has deeply eroded trust... Armenia now wants to break free of Russia’s grip,” the authors argue.
• “China also presents a challenge to Russian interests in Central Asia… A leaked Kremlin memo indicates Russian concerns that Western sanctions are enabling China and others to displace Russian businesses in the region,” Braml and Burrows report.
• “Central Asian states are striving for balanced power politics and do not want to be exclusively tied to Russia, but rather to establish plurilateral, independent regional cooperation, also with a view to partnerships with China and Western countries,” the authors explain.
• “Instead of punishing Central Asian and Caucasian countries for their trade with Russia, the United States and Europe could do better by offering closer economic ties, increasing Moscow’s fears of a realignment by the two regions toward the West,” Braml and Burrows conclude.

"Occupational therapy: Frozen conflicts, Russian aggression and EU enlargement," Tefta Kelmendi and Sergi Kapanadze, ECFR, 08.01.25.

• “Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU has offered a membership perspective to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova,” Tenev writes.
• “This gives the bloc new potential to resolve or stabilize ‘frozen conflicts’ in eastern candidate states,” Tenev notes.
• “The breakaway and occupied regions of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria are undergoing a process of de facto annexation by Russia,” Tenev observes.
• “The EU should draw up a policy to deal with Russian annexation actions, prevent Moscow from effectively vetoing candidates’ accession, and embed this in its evolving approach towards Russia,” Tenev concludes.

"Russia and Its Neighbors Amid Global Uncertainty," Timofey Bordachev, Valdai Club, 08.04.25. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

• “Russia does not aim to keep its neighbors in its sphere of influence or guarantee itself privileged political and economic positions there. However, it is important that their objective dependence on Russia in various fields of development and security does not harm Russia’s own interests,” Bordachev writes.
• “The prolonged military-political crisis in Russia’s relations with the West, as well as general uncertainty in the global economy and politics, have created a situation in which Moscow’s neighbors are confronted with both opportunities and serious challenges,” the author notes.
• “Eurasia, the largest and most important region on the planet, remains at the center of international politics—and continues to attract attention from peripheral powers, including the United States,” Bordachev argues.
• “The countries neighboring Russia in the Caucasus and Central Asia are now searching for the most sustainable models for survival and development, as traditional reference points become less reliable,” Bordachev explains.
• “Nearly all of them are already established states, with stable political systems and independent foreign policies,” the author observes.
• “For Russia, it is important that future objective dependence of its neighbors does not harm Russia’s interests. This means the nature of political regimes in neighboring countries is not fundamentally important to us,” Bordachev points out.
• “Solving this problem might involve incorporating cooperation with neighboring countries into the wider context of Eurasian joint development and, at the same time, implementing a consistent and firm strategy for advancing Russian interests first and foremost,” Bordachev concludes.

Footnotes

1. NB: in many conflict interactions strategic ambiguity can be a serious problem, but in nuclear bargaining, strategic ambiguity is more often a strength. Israel and North Korea, for example, are each respected for having perfected the art of nuclear ambiguity. Trump’s lack of specificity in his claim to have ordered U.S. “nuclear submarines” into “appropriate positions,” is therefore sound strategy.
2. Also on Aug. 4, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced that Russia is formally abandoning its unilateral moratorium on deploying intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, Meduza reported. More nuclear signaling.

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.

Slider photo by AP Photo/Jun Dumaguing.