Russia Analytical Report, May 4–11, 2026

3 Ideas to Explore

  1. “I believe that the matter is coming to an end, but this is really a serious matter,” Vladimir Putin declared regarding the Ukraine conflict during a Q&A following this year’s Victory Day parade, casting the war as a proxy struggle with “the so‑called globalist part of the Western elites.” Commenting on Putin’s remark, Kommersant’s veteran Kremlin pool reporter Andrei Kolesnikov argued that “changes have appeared in Vladimir Putin’s position. He has begun to think of something, possibly different, about this war.” “In Vladimir Putin’s opinion, the end is near,” Kolesnikov added in his account of the May 9 Q&A. Putin’s declaration constitutes “one of the Kremlin’s clearest indications yet that Moscow may be seeking a negotiated settlement after more than four years of fighting,” according to long-time Berlin-based Russia watcher Ben Aris. In contrast, Moscow-based analyst Georgii Bovt warns against literal readings of Putin’s declaration that “the matter is coming to an end,” calling the phrase rhetoric “addressed to the public,” which both craves an end and is meant to hear that “victory itself is near.” In her latest R. Politik Bulletin, France-based Russian political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya argues that Putin’s unusually upbeat claim that the war “is coming to an end” reflects his perception of a fragmenting West rather than any genuine readiness to compromise. A Telegram channel attributed to well-known Russian blogger Anatoly Nesmiyan observes that Putin’s remark sparked a wave of commentary, with some seeing “no visible reasons for the war to end.” “Yet in an autocratic regime, rationality is secondary, and a conflict can begin or end without clear cause,” according to the Otrkytye Prostranstva (Open Space) Telegram channel. Our search of Putin’s speeches on May 9 in 2022–2025 on the Kremlin’s website netted repeated closing calls “For Victory!” by Putin, but no declarations that the war in Ukraine is coming to an end. Russia’s recent territorial losses in Ukraine and modest declines in Putin’s popularity (which is still above 60% and is perhaps partially driven by shrinking economic output) may have played a role if Putin’s claim did constitute a signal that he wants to end the war soon.*
  2. In addition to Putin’s observation that “the matter is coming to an end,” this past week has seen high-ranking Ukrainian officials and members of Putin’s Kremlin staff reportedly share the thought that it might be time to make peace and sell that as victory. First, it was reported late last month that former commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces and its current ambassador to the U.K. Valerii Zaluzhnyi said during a Q&A in late April: “So victory, for both Russia and Ukraine, is increasingly a question of how to sell the outcome as victory. Someone will gain territory and people and call that ‘victory’; someone will lose almost everything yet still try to sell it as ‘victory’ to their people. That’s the current problem. The more we think and plan our future, the sooner we will find an answer as to how much longer we personally need this war, and then build a strategy to end it at that time with that result, so that we don’t have to sell it as victory.” Then, the investigative Dossier Center reported in early May that a recent internal Russian presidential administration presentation declares that one has “to know when to stop.” “Overreach means defeat; continuing the Special Military Operation would be a Pyrrhic victory,” according to the presentation as cited by Dossier, which then lays out plans for how to “sell” the peace with Ukraine to the Russian public. Several commentators chimed in on the selling pitch. In any settlement, the sides “must find some formula that will allow Zelenskyy to say [to the Ukrainian public] that we did not abandon Donbas, and Russia to say that nevertheless the Ukrainian Armed Forces left it,” according to Moscow-based Georgi Bovt.
  3. “There is in fact a complete blurring of the boundaries between the front and the rear; the entire territory of the state and, unfortunately, the entire population becomes a zone of hostilities” in the Russia-Ukraine war, former Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi said. The general said that “modern war is a war of drones” and that the forward edge on land “almost excludes the physical presence of personnel,” noting that “for the first time in all known human history, robots have come to war,” in remarks at a conference in Poland that were reported by Ukrainska Pravda. Zaluzhnyi stressed that for Ukraine “it is now extremely necessary to create technologies for protection against strikes by unmanned systems, first and foremost to protect people.” On mobilization in Ukraine, he warned that it is becoming “the center of conflict between the country’s population and the bodies of state authority,” calling for a temporary mobilization, which would provide for “partial transfer of certain functions to private companies and the continued improvement of the existing system through open dialogue with society, especially with young people, about a new system of service, clear training periods and clear terms of [the duration] of service and future prospects.”

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

Nuclear security and safety:

  • No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

  • No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

"Strategic Implications of the Iran War," Paul J. Saunders and Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The National Interest, 05.04.26.

  • Saunders and Gvosdev open by noting that “over two months into the US-Israeli war with Iran, the conflict shows no signs of imminent resolution, with both sides convinced that time is on their side.” They stress that “the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up the prices of oil and natural gas,” yet “neither Washington nor Tehran appears ready to back down or make concessions,” raising “the possibility of a prolonged stalemate of ‘no war, no peace.’”
  • The authors argue that “the war’s immediate effects on the energy markets and US military posture will have repercussions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s plans for Taiwan,” as well as for “President Donald Trump’s summit in Beijing later this month.” They frame their discussion around key questions: “How long can each side endure this state of affairs, and what would it take to force a settlement and reopen the Strait of Hormuz?” and “How does the war intersect with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine?”
  • They also emphasize that a central issue is “what lessons is China drawing as it watches another great power struggle to bring a middle power to heel?” and that the conversation seeks to unpack “how the Iran War intersects with the Ukraine War, what it might take to settle the Iran War, and what China is learning,” as Saunders, “president of the Center for the National Interest,” speaks with Gvosdev, whom they describe as holding the “Captain Jerome E. Levy chair in Economic Geography and National Security at the US Naval War College.”

“Could Russia Follow the ‘Hormuz Playbook’ in the Baltic and Black Seas?”, Miro Sedlák, War on the Rocks, 05.08.26.

  • Miro Sedlák argues that Iran has shown “a chokepoint vital for global trade can be closed with drone attacks, insurance repricing, and the self-interested logic of shipping companies,” noting that after a handful of strikes, “major marine war-risk insurers terminated existing cover and repriced sharply upward” and “tanker traffic collapsed by more than 80 percent before Iran laid a single mine.” He contends that “the lesson for Europe is immediate: Russia could employ the same mechanism to close key maritime chokepoints at the Danish or Turkish Straits,” because “Russia does not need to blockade the Danish Straits or mine the western Black Sea… — it only needs to make those waters uninsurable.”
  • Sedlák warns that in the Baltic, every LNG cargo for Mukran, Świnoujście, Klaipėda, and Inkoo “enters the Baltic through one of three passages… the Danish Straits,” and that Russia “already produces Geran‑2 (Shahed-type) drones — with ranges exceeding 1,300 kilometers — at industrial scale,” while incidents in 2025 showed Russian drones entering Lithuanian and Polish airspace and forcing Danish airport closures. “Russia does not need to sink a single tanker full of gas in the Kattegat — it only needs to credibly threaten one,” he writes: one successful strike could prompt Lloyd’s Joint War Committee to add the zone to its high‑risk list, “insurers cancel cover, and shipping companies choose not to sail,” with a $10,000 drone putting at risk “a single liquified gas cargo… worth between $40 and $80 million.”

“Secret document reveals Russia’s plans to aid Iran,” The Economist, 05.07.26.

  • The Economist reports that “a confidential document obtained by The Economist from a trusted source suggests that Russia has offered to provide Iran with unjammable drones and training on how to use them against American troops in the Gulf and perhaps elsewhere.” The ten‑page GRU proposal envisages supplying “5,000 short-range fiber-optic drones of the sort used in the war in Ukraine, an unknown number of longer-range satellite-guided drones, and training to use both sorts,” and is described by regional intelligence sources and Christo Grozev as consistent with “evidence that the GRU is looking for ways of increasing Russian support for Iran during its war with America and Israel.”
  • Fiber‑optic drones, which “have transformed the battlefield in Ukraine” by creating “large ‘grey zones’ in which vehicles and soldiers in the open are attacked remorselessly,” are guided by wires rather than radio and so “can be used to conduct pin-point attacks at ranges of over 40km” without emitting signals that reveal the operator. The second part of the plan involves “long-range satellite-guided drones equipped with Starlink terminals,” which Russia had used to locate and evade or attack Ukrainian air defenses and which the GRU suggests could be diverted to the Middle East, while a third element is training Iranian and other operators, including among “an estimated 10,000 Iranian students studying in Russian universities.” Acknowledging that Russia is “heavily committed in the fifth year of its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine,” the document argues that limited assistance would still “complicate any American operation” while remaining “deniable…which would avoid dragging Russia into open conflict with America.”

On Iran war in “Answers to Questions From Journalists,” Vladimir Putin, Kremlin transcript, 05.09.26.

  • On the broader war around Iran, Putin called it “a very heavy and complex conflict” that puts Russia “in a difficult position, because we have good relations with Iran and friendly relations, without any exaggeration, with the countries of the Persian Gulf,” saying Moscow “continues to contact both one and the other side” and “hopes this conflict can be ended as quickly as possible.”
  • He said he believes “there are no longer interested parties in continuing this confrontation” but stressed that any deal must serve “the interests of all peoples and all states of this region,” adding that “if things move toward an escalation… all will be losers.”
  • On U.S. demands that Iran ship out highly enriched uranium, Putin revealed that “we not only proposed, we already did this once in 2015,” when Iran “trusting us completely… exported this material to Russia,” which “then formed the basis for concluding the agreement between all interested countries and Iran.”
  • He said Moscow is again “ready to repeat this experience” and that at first “everyone agreed… representatives of the United States, Iran, Israel,” but that later “the United States toughened its position and demanded export only to U.S. territory. After that Iran toughened its position… [saying] ‘now we are not ready to export this enriched uranium anywhere’ and proposing instead ‘a joint venture on Iranian territory’,” which he told them “no one will agree to… neither the United States nor Israel,” so “the situation in this direction has reached an impasse.”
  • Arguing for his proposal, he said that if Russia again received the uranium, “Iran can be completely sure that it has exported these materials to a friendly country… And the other participants… could also be interested, because… everything would be placed under IAEA control… the work to dilute this uranium would also be organized under IAEA control, transparent and safe.” He insisted Russia sought no political gain, saying “we simply want to make our modest contribution… to de‑escalation,” and concluded that “if this does not suit [others]—so be it. But we will support any solution that brings this position out of a dead end and allows movement along the path of peaceful settlement.”
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

“A Ukrainian strike on a Russian oil hub causes catastrophe,” The Economist, 05.07.26.

  • The Economist describes how in Tuapse, usually a “popular summer destination” near Sochi, “the air was thick with toxic black clouds that billowed from a burning oil refinery and from flaming storage tanks belonging to Rosneft,” after a series of Ukrainian drone strikes on “an important oil-export hub.” The first April 16 attack “killed two people and injured seven,” a follow‑on strike “caus[ed] an oil spill that…contaminated some 50km of coastline,” and “two more attacks hit the oil facilities…including one that damaged the main refinery itself on April 28th,” turning the area into “an environmental disaster” with “rain stained with oily droplets and soot” and “burning fuel flowing down a street, like molten lava.”
  • The article notes that authorities’ “main concern…seems…to limit the political fallout” by “keeping a lid on the news,” with loudspeakers warning that taking photos could bring fines of 500,000 rubles, police searching cars and bags, and officials initially just advising residents to “keep windows shut” and “limit their time outdoors.” Vladimir Putin, citing “upbeat reports” from the governor, insisted “There are no serious threats,” while state media framed Ukraine’s campaign as “environmental terrorism.” Yet locals voice deeper unease: “We thought that after these events people would reflect more seriously on the reasons for Ukrainian drone attacks, but that did not happen,” one volunteer says, and a resident, told the mayor promises clean beaches by June 1, replies, “I don’t care about vacationers. My heart aches for my hometown.”
  • See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

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

“Intelligent mobilization as part of a new doctrine and a component of state stability in the conditions of modern warfare,” Speech by Valerii Zaluzhnyi at the Defence24 Days conference in Warsaw, 05.07.26. Clues from Ukrainian Views. Machine-translated.

  • "The main consequence of emergence of such new tools as unmanned systems was the transparency of the battlefield, which led to the so‑called stalemate that did not make it possible to carry out operational and strategic tasks."
  • "Unfortunately, having at one time ceded the initiative on the battlefield to Russia, Ukraine was forced to respond not only to challenges but also to the enemy’s systematic work on almost all sectors of the front, to respond according to the same methodology and, of course, at the cost of sometimes very heavy losses."
  • "It was precisely with such approaches that a certain circle of experts, both in Ukraine and beyond its borders, without themselves understanding the essence, increasingly supported the intermediate concept chosen by Russia of inflicting, through its own actions and losses, critical losses on the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which would force society to capitulate. Such 'expertise' was unavoidably driving Ukraine and its future into dependence on demography and, as a consequence, into the inevitability of defeat."
  • "It is precisely the issues of mobilization and the methods of its implementation that are increasingly becoming the center of conflict between the country’s population and the bodies of state authority of Ukraine."
  • "The topic of our conversation today is not even mobilization and demobilization, but a more complex process, which is characteristic of the 13th year of the war and the fifth year of the full‑scale invasion under conditions of the absence of a fact of ending the war, of large‑scale changes in tools and, as a consequence, in the forms and methods of warfare. This is the restoration and maintenance of the state’s combat capability."
  • "Scientific and technological progress, or even spontaneous innovations, as in our case, create new weapons. Their creation inevitably requires the emergence of completely new forms and methods of employment, and only after that the creation of new structures. These may be regiments, brigades, corps, or entire branches of the armed forces. But only in this sequence."
  • "[When] combat capabilities are based on the use of unmanned and robotic systems, whose employment is gradually changing from a remote‑control model to the use of semi‑autonomous and autonomous combat systems, should the mobilization system remain at the level of the doctrine of the First World War? ... Probably, ...not. Because, due to the emergence and development precisely of new weapons, the very organization of combat operations, for example on land, presupposes that the forward edge almost excludes the physical presence of personnel."
  • "In connection with the shift of strategic aims toward the destruction of the economy through strikes on infrastructure and the reduction of the resilience of the people through strikes on civilian targets, there is in fact a complete blurring of the boundaries between the front and the rear; the entire territory of the state and, unfortunately, the entire population becomes a zone of hostilities. It is true that the distance to a target or object of destruction does not and will not matter at all."
  • "So the question of whether the mobilization system had to change because of the replacement of weapons and the forms and methods of warfare has an obvious and concise answer. Yes, the mobilization system, which in the course of war provides for maintaining the necessary level of combat capabilities, must change because of the replacement of the methods of warfare. Indeed, this is a new and dangerous phenomenon because of its uniqueness and the absence of historical examples. However, even in all known human history, robots have come to war for the first time."
  • "Until a combined‑arms commander understands that modern war is a war of drones, that artillery is no longer the 'god of war', that tanks are the past, like horses and sabers, the troops will continue to suffer heavy losses in personnel, and the war will last as long as there are enough people for the old mobilization. Of course, it is now extremely necessary to create technologies for protection against strikes by precisely unmanned systems, first and foremost to protect people."
  • "[There is] a need to introduce the so‑called intelligent mobilization, built taking into account precisely the development of scientific and technological progress and the necessity of a prolonged war over the entire territory of the country under conditions of an obvious demographic crisis... such mobilization, provided the war is technologized, will be possible in the following types."
    • "The first type of mobilization is when the majority of the population does not feel the war in the country and does everything possible so that this feeling is preserved until the end of hostilities. An excellent example of such intelligent mobilization is the gradual transfer of the functions of war, for example, to private military companies, or the financial motivation of those who are voluntarily engaged in the war."
    • "The second type of mobilization is nationwide mobilization with the determination of clear volumes and, most importantly, timeframes for all categories of citizens."
    • "There is a third type of mobilization, as a temporary one – this is the partial transfer of certain functions to private companies and the continued improvement of the existing system through open dialogue with society, especially with young people, about a new system of service, clear training periods and clear terms of service and future prospects. This will require complex work both by the military command and by the legislative bodies and the government."
      • "Then demobilization itself also becomes possible, but only as the result of the measures carried out, and not as an end in itself."
  • "The events unfolding now have made it obvious that mobilization and the procedure for military service are the foundation of any option for the further continuation of the war... a strategy with the involvement of society can also become an important factor in uniting society around common goals and interests, the achievement of which can once again give society confidence and hope."

“Russia is stumbling on the battlefield”, The Economist, 05.10.26. 

  • “Rubbing in the insult Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, issued a decree to ‘permit’ the parade to proceed, saying that Red Square would not be attacked” on May 9. 
  • “For the first time in nearly three years the initiative in the war appears to have shifted in favor of Ukraine. Having got through a harsh winter, when its cities and energy grid were pummeled almost nightly by massed Russian drones and missiles, Ukraine is now turning the tide. It is imposing increasing costs on Russia by almost every measure.”
  • “Not only has Russia’s expected spring offensive been a flop, but in April Russian forces suffered a net loss of territory for the first time since August 2024 (when Ukraine seized territory in Russia’s Kursk oblast). The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think-tank in Washington, recently listed contributing factors to Ukraine’s successes: ground counter-attacks and mid-range strikes by Ukraine’s forces; the end of Russia’s illicit use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine; and the Kremlin’s paranoid throttling of the Telegram messaging app at home. By our calculations, based on ISW maps, Russia has lost control of 113 square kilometers over the past 30 days.”
  • “Losses of soldiers, running at 35,000 a month, exceed the pace at which Russia can recruit replacements. And behind the raw numbers—nearly 1.4m killed and seriously wounded since Russia’s invasion—is a grimmer new development. Until last year, the ratio of killed to wounded Russian soldiers may have been between 1:2 and 1:3, poor by modern standards but roughly in line with past conflicts.”
    • “The dead-to-wounded ratio appears to be rising because so many casualties—perhaps as many as 80%—are now caused by so-called first-person view (FPV) drones... Russian soldiers complain that Ukraine’s new autonomous drones are inaudible until they dive. They use artificial intelligence and are controlled with fiber-optic cables to thwart jammers.”
    • “A drone “kill zone” of some 20km between the front lines is being extended far to the Russian rear, Sir Lawrence Freedman argues.” 
  • “Farther back from the front line, Russia is suffering mounting losses to Ukraine’s mid-range drones (with ranges of 50km to 300km). Mr. Zelensky recently claimed that procurement of such systems so far this year is five times greater than in all of 2025. ... Economic and military targets almost 2,000km from the Ukrainian border are regularly being hit. That brings 70% of Russia’s population within range of Ukrainian drones.” 
  • “In April attacks on ports and refineries forced Russia to cut production by as much as 400,000 barrels a day, Reuters reports. On April 29th Mr. Zelensky claimed that internal Russian reports indicated that the ports of Novorossiysk and Ust-Luga were operating at respectively 38% and 43% below capacity. However, overall Russian oil exports only fell by 7% in April and its revenues nearly doubled thanks to the Iran war.”

“Putin’s Forces Are Barely Inching Along on the Battlefield,” Paul Sonne, Cassandra Vinograd and Milana Mazaeva, New York Times, 05.10.26.

  • The authors write that while Putin tells Trump his troops are heading for “inevitable victory,” “the situation on the battlefield tells a different story”: “after making gains late last year, the Russian military has slowed to a crawl,” and “at its average monthly rate of advance so far this year, it would take Russia more than three decades to seize full control of the Donbas.” Dara Massicot says “the best they can do is these infiltration tactics… but it doesn’t lead to rapid gains. They are kind of stuck.”
  • They argue that “Russia has yet to solve the fundamental problem of how to make big advances on a battlefield saturated with drones,” forcing it to rely on small‑team infiltrations that expand an ill‑defined “gray zone” rather than yielding clear territorial control. According to Black Bird Group, Russian gains in the past three months are its “worst battlefield performance… since 2023,” and “what limited gains Russia has made have come with heavy casualties,” with an estimated “352,000 Russian soldiers” dead by end‑2025, “more than six times the number of U.S. troops killed during the Vietnam War.”
  • The stalemate, they note, is “putting the Russian government under increasing economic and political strain,” as Putin’s approval “has fallen to their lowest levels since the start of the war” and mobile‑internet blackouts imposed “to prevent Ukrainian drone attacks… anger ordinary Russians.” While Putin told reporters “I believe the matter is coming to a close, yet it remains a serious thing,” Sonne and colleagues say the Kremlin is instead “hoping that peace talks will negotiate away the difficult part, which is fighting for the rest of the Donbas,” even as Ukraine tries to “force peace through strength” by killing or wounding tens of thousands of Russian soldiers each month and striking oil installations deep inside Russia.

“The War Room newsletter: Is Russia being out-droned?”, Dmytro Putiata, The Economist, 05.06.26. Clues from Ukrainian Views.

  • Dmytro Putiata writes that Ukraine’s “response was drone-based air defense to intercept everything from reconnaissance drones to Shahed strike drones,” a system that is “still far from fully effective, but…one of the few systems in the world that works,” while “the Russians are further behind.” He says Russia only began using drones to intercept Ukrainian drones in late 2025 and that its effort is “not yet…cohesive,” describing “isolated elements” and a nascent network of small radars plus attempts to copy Ukrainian software like “Skymap and Graphite.” Over the past six months, Putiata argues, Ukraine has “significantly increased the number of strikes…30km to 200km behind the front line,” now hitting “logistics, air-defense systems, radars, ammunition stores… and fuel depots,” forcing Moscow to move depots back and even restrict convoys to “only two trucks.”
  • He contends that as Russia “has finally begun to suffer defeats in the operational depth,” its army “has reached an impasse,” with unrealistic orders, falsified reports and “a high casualty rate.” For the first time since 2022, he says, “Ukrainian technology is dominating the front lines,” allowing routine strikes 30–150 km deep with $5,000 drones, and he is “convinced that in 2026, Ukraine will once again surprise the world” with successful localized offensives, while warning that “drones do not replace maneuver warfare.”

“Zelenskyy has no cards to play against Russia or the West,” Leonid Ragozin, Al Jazeera, 05.03.26.

  • Leonid Ragozin writes that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s reputation as a “public relations genius” and even “the new leader of free world” cannot “change the dynamics of the battlefield,” arguing that “there is nothing at all that suggests a significant change” in two years. He notes that Kyiv’s claims of outgaining Russia in February rest on “150-200 square kilometers per month,” where methodology “can be manipulated,” while “Russian troops are currently besieging a number of industrial cities” and extending the front “by hundreds of kilometers,” worsening Ukraine’s manpower crisis.
  • The author highlights that Ukraine has resorted to “brutal campaigns to enforce mandatory conscription,” while “Russia is still able to lure volunteers by offering lavish compensation,” and questions Kyiv’s casualty claims, noting that Zelenskyy’s March figure of 35,000 Russian dead contradicted his own ministry’s earlier number of “more than 48,000” in January 2025. Ragozin points out that Russian oil revenues “surged to $9bn” in April—“equivalent to 10 percent of the loan Ukraine is to receive from the European Union over the next two years”—and that Russia’s GDP per capita (PPP) now “exceeds that of…Romania and Greece,” while Ukraine’s is “on par with Mongolia and Egypt.” With German Chancellor Friedrich Merz floating territorial concessions and EU officials downplaying NATO or rapid EU membership, Ragozin concludes that Zelenskyy “seems to hold no cards to play against Russia or his Western allies.”

“Ukraine Strikes Deep Inside Russia,” Jillian Kay Melchior, Wall Street Journal, 05.07.26.

Military aid to Ukraine:

“U.S. War in Iran Leaves Ukraine’s Air Defense in Limbo,” Sam Skove, Foreign Policy, 05.04.26.

  • Sam Skove reports that “Ukraine and its partners in Europe are holding their breath” to see how the war in Iran will affect Patriot deliveries, quoting one European diplomat saying, “Everything will depend on the situation around Iran.” Since April 2023, the United States has supplied Patriots, but the Trump administration in 2025 shifted to selling them to NATO states under the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), which then transfer them to Kyiv. Yet European Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said Ukraine needs “as many as 2,000 Patriot missiles per year,” while an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky said it has received “just 600 interceptors over four years,” Skove notes.
  • According to Skove, U.S. forces have used “as much as half” of an estimated 2,330‑missile Patriot stockpile defending against Iran, while Patriots are also vital for Asia, leading CSIS’s Tom Karako to warn, “We’re hitting dangerous territory.” He writes that PAC‑3 MSE production is under 200 missiles a year with a “42 months” lead time, and quotes a European diplomat saying there is “still not a great deal of certainty” on future PURL packages.
  • Skove writes that Vice President J.D. Vance said ending military aid for Ukraine was one of the actions he was “proudest” of, and that Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby insisted PURL “must not rely on significant U.S. contributions.” Ukraine’s options are thin: SAMP/T production is “300 interceptors or less per year,” Zelensky has complained of “a lack of interceptors,” and Patriots’ intercept rate has already fallen to “only a 25 percent” success rate, according to CSIS’s Yasir Atalan. Still, Skove notes a senior European diplomat believes “President Trump likes PURL,” calling it a “brilliant idea for how to make Europeans pay for American weapons,” and quotes a PURL‑country diplomat saying Ukraine has “proven over and over again…that this is a force to be reckoned with.”

“Vladimir Putin’s Answers to Media Questions,” Kremlin.ru, 05.09.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • On the conduct and aims of the Ukraine war, he framed the conflict as a proxy war: “What exactly is the West? I believe that it is the so-called globalist part of the Western elites. It is them who are fighting against us by proxy of Ukraine… Taken together, all this has provoked the current situation. They are fighting against us, which has become clear to everyone, by proxy of Ukraine.”
  • He said: “We have recently discussed this issue with our colleagues, remembering how it all started. We concluded an agreement with the Ukrainians and initialed it in Istanbul in 2022. And then one of my colleagues – frankly, it was Macron who did it – called me and said, “Ukraine cannot sign such documents with a gun to its head.” This is a direct quote; we have the tape of that conversation. I asked him, “What should we do?” He said, “Can you withdraw troops from Kiev?” We have done it. One member of the show business popped up, the then Prime Minister of Britain. What did he say? He said that the agreement cannot be signed because it is unfair. Who says what is fair and what is not? Why is it unfair if the head of the Ukrainian negotiating team has initialed the document? Who is the judge? Next, they promised assistance [to Ukraine] and started fostering confrontation with Russia, which is continuing to this day. I believe that the matter is coming to an end, but this is really a serious matter.”
  • On a possible meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, Putin said Fico had relayed that “Mr Zelensky… is ready to hold a personal meeting,” and replied: “What can I say in this regard? That we have never refused, and I have not refused to hold it. I do not propose this meeting, but if someone does, we are ready for it. Let the one who proposes arrive. Let him come in Moscow, and we will meet.” For the first time he also allowed: “We could meet in a third country, but only after reaching final understandings on a peace agreement, which should be designed for a long historical perspective, so that a meeting is held to sign it. However, it should be the final point, not negotiations themselves because we know what negotiations themselves are. I was personally closely involved in this process in Minsk during the drafting of the Minsk agreements. You can talk for hours, endlessly, day and night, and all to no avail.”
  • On NATO, Europe, and how he sees the broader confrontation ending, Putin argued that many in the West expected Russia to collapse and “grab something”: “Everyone expected Russia to collapse quickly… enterprises would have stopped functioning, the banking system would have failed, and millions of people would have lost their livelihoods… And they would be quick to snap that up.” 

“Putin says he thinks Russia-Ukraine war is coming to an end,” Vladimir Soldatkin and Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, 05.09.26.

  • Reuters reports that after the most scaled‑back Victory Day parade in years, Vladimir Putin told reporters, “I think that the matter is coming to an end,” referring to the Russia‑Ukraine war, which he called “Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.” The agency notes that he made the remark only hours after vowing victory at the parade, and that “Putin has repeatedly vowed to fight on until all of Russia’s various war aims are achieved in what Moscow calls the ‘special military operation’.”
  • Asked about talks with Europe, Putin said he would be “willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe,” and that “for me personally, the former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Schroeder, is preferable” as an interlocutor. On Volodymyr Zelensky, Reuters quotes him saying that “a meeting was possible only once a lasting peace deal was agreed,” underscoring that he sees any summit with the Ukrainian president as a final ratification rather than a venue for real negotiation.
  • Reuters sets the remark in the context of a war now “well over four years” old, longer than the Soviet Union’s fighting in World War II, with Russia still “unable to take the whole of the Donbas region” and its advances having “slowed this year.” The piece underlines that Russia’s 2022 invasion “triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,” and that despite Putin’s suggestion the war is “coming to an end,” the Kremlin says Trump‑brokered talks are “on pause” and Moscow continues to cast European powers as “warmongers” while insisting Ukraine must accept its terms.

“Putin says the war in Ukraine is ‘coming to an end,’” Ben Aris, IntelliNews, 05.10.26.

  • Ben Aris reports that Vladimir Putin told journalists after the May 9 Victory Day events that he believed the war “was ‘coming to an end’,” declaring, “I think the (war in Ukraine) is coming to an end… I believe that things are moving toward a conclusion, though it remains a serious matter.” Aris writes that this “appeared to be one of the Kremlin’s clearest indications yet that Moscow may be seeking a negotiated settlement,” and cites longtime Russia watcher Simon Saradzhyan, who said Putin’s comments represented “the strongest signal he has sent so far that he wants to end the war soon.”
  • At the same press conference, Putin said he would be willing to meet Volodymyr Zelensky in a third country, departing from his previous insistence that talks take place in Moscow: “Whoever wishes to meet is welcome to come,” he said; “A meeting could also take place in a third country, but this would require reaching definitive agreements beforehand.” He also tied a planned 1,000‑for‑1,000 prisoner exchange to the three‑day ceasefire, saying it “remained possible” but claiming that “Kyiv had yet to submit formal proposals.”
  • Putin argued that Western governments had badly misread the war, saying “they were expecting a crushing defeat for Russia… and the collapse of its statehood within a matter of months,” but “then they got stuck in this rut, and now they simply cannot find a way out of it,” while adding that the United States “clearly have no need for this conflict; they have many other priority tasks.” Aris notes that Putin faces “a flagging economy and rising popular dissent to new restrictions on internet freedoms,” and that a political window for a deal with Trump is closing, with observers seeing the timing as part of why Putin is “motivated to close a deal… soon, while he has complete control of the US political process.”

“In Focus,” Bulletin No. 9 (183), 2026, Tatyana Stanovaya, R.Politik, 05.11.26.

  • Tatyana Stanovaya writes that “Russia approached this year's Victory Day in the most tense state it has been in the post-Soviet era,” with the “drastically reduced parade… driven primarily by genuine fear of a Ukrainian strike on the celebrations.” She notes that “in response, Moscow threatened Kyiv with devastating attacks on decision-making centres and warned China, India and the United States of the deadly consequences should Ukraine dare to attack Russia.” Putin’s unusual embrace of the three‑day Trump‑brokered ceasefire, she argues, was “an unusual departure from his customary rejection of pauses in fighting,” and “reflects how seriously the Kremlin took the Ukrainian threat to disrupt the parade.”
  • That episode, Stanovaya writes, “exposes the structural bind he is now in: passivity in the face of mounting Ukrainian strikes erodes his domestic position, but escalation undermines the transactional posture he is trying to maintain with Washington.” At home, she says, “the patriotic consensus is visibly cracking,” as “mobile internet shutdowns, a rising tax burden and the spreading reach of drone attacks have produced the sharpest deterioration of daily life since the war began.” Speculation about a coup, amplified by leaks and Western reporting, “has fuelled the sense of a fragile regime,” but she calls such talk “largely exaggerated,” arguing instead that “what is real is the gradual fading of Putin's credibility, which is more likely to deepen repression than break into open crisis.”
  • On Putin’s comment that the war “is coming to an end,” Stanovaya cautions that it “reflects his reading of a fragmenting West rather than any flexibility on his part to make a deal,” and that “America's passive and distant position on Ukraine has upset Putin, who has hardened the Russian line: no trilateral talks before Ukraine withdraws from Donbas.” She notes that Moscow “used the situation around 9 May, and its own push for the ceasefire, to accelerate Russian–American interaction on Ukraine,” while also “leveraging” Iran “to reach Trump,” positioning Russia as “a potential mediator with the Iranian conservative camp, particularly on the uranium stockpile — an offer Trump has so far rejected,” keeping that channel open “in case the talks reach a stalemate and Russian proposals come back into play.”

“Putin’s ‘soon end to the conflict’ remark and the system’s need for a new enemy,” Anatoly Nesmiyan (Otkrytye Prostranstva), Telegram, 05.10.26.

  • Anatoly Nesmiyan writes that Putin’s statement about a soon end to the conflict with Ukraine and the change in tone toward Zelensky “triggered an obvious surge of commentary,” much of it reviving the “cunning plan” meme and arguing “this is just words, in reality there are no visible reasons for ending the conflict.” He calls that fair “if you look at the situation rationally and objectively,” but stresses that “for an autocratic regime categories like rationality are always secondary”: a conflict “can begin and end without the slightest reasons for either,” recalling that “Saddam Hussein entered Kuwait and left it, and propaganda explained both the entry and the exit in an utterly convincing way. There were no doubters.”
  • Nesmiyan argues that the deeper problem is systemic: “the Russian system of governance has already been transformed over more than seven years, if you count from the beginning of the ‘pandemic’,” it “entered an extreme mode and settled into it in the utmost comfort,” and “a transition into a non‑extreme state will be a shock for it, so severe that such a transition could lead it to collapse.” Hence the “perfectly reasonable question: what exactly will this system of governance be switched to in the event the conflict ends in whatever form? In other words – who is the next enemy?” With terrorists “wiped out” and “dissidents and foreign agents under the hood and absent in an organised sense,” he says, options are limited – perhaps “separatists” – but “you cannot end the special military operation without a clearly chosen strategy for switching to a new task.”
  • He contends that just as “the ‘pandemic’ flowed into the SMO with literally the flip of a switch,” any end to the Ukraine war must be followed by a rapid pivot to a new “unquestionable threat,” because simply “concluding peace and going home – well, that’s unserious. The consequences would be too unpredictable.” As for hopes that, after victory is declared, the country will move to “peaceful construction and development,” Nesmiyan calls this “quite unrealistic”: even in the far better conditions of the early 2010s, “they never managed to launch any convincing post‑resource development project,” and now “the system of governance has largely lost the skills, practices and institutional memory of peaceful development,” so “hope for a rapid and successful transition to a normal agenda looks rather unreal.”

Georgii Bovt on Putin’s ‘coming to an end’ remark, Telegram, 05.10.26.

  • Russian political commentator Georgii Bovt notes that Putin’s press conference “format” gave him “more opportunity to convey the content he wanted,” since “in the speech at the Parade he in fact said nothing about the current political moment,” so “an addition was called for.” He points out that “Zelensky was called by his surname for the first time in many, many months, although the tone is rather tough.” On Putin’s line “I think the matter is coming to an end,” Bovt cautions, “I would not exaggerate its significance or interpret it literally,” suggesting it is “partly addressed to the public, which would indeed like the conflict to end as soon as possible,” and “perhaps at the same time a hint that, in the president’s opinion, victory itself is near, and therefore the end is near.”
  • Bovt warns against reading Putin’s remark on “coming to an end” as a timetable: “I would not regard this as some temporal indication of the date of the end of the conflict. Rumors have already appeared, and some are even placing bets, that the conflict will be over by the end of May. I would not rush with such forecasts,” he says, “since, apparently, the negotiating positions of the parties remain the same,” and on the eve of Victory Day they were “confirmed” by Ushakov and others that Russia’s key precondition is “the withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Donbas,” which “Zelensky does not want to do, and there are no signs that he will.”
  • In any settlement, Bovt argues, “must find some formula that will allow Zelensky to say that we did not abandon Donbas, and Russia to say that nevertheless the Ukrainian Armed Forces left it,” suggesting ideas like a “free economic zone” as examples, and concluding that while “outlines” of such solutions exist, “it is too early to talk about this.”

“‘No Need to Take Things to the Extreme,’” Andrei Kolesnikov, Kommersant, 05.10.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Kolesnikov describes Putin at the late‑evening May 9 press conference as “extraordinarily peace‑loving. And perhaps he even was,” noting that, for the first time in years, Putin referred to the Ukrainian president by surname.
  • Kolesnikov then underlined that “if Vladimir Putin heard this, he himself has said it more than once,” but this time “he said something he had never said before”: “You can also meet in a third country, but only in the case when final agreements on a peace treaty are reached, which should be calculated for a long historical perspective, in order to take part in this event or to sign something… But this must be the final point, and not the negotiations themselves.
  • Commenting on Putin’s remarks, such as that the conflict is coming to an end, Kolesnikov writes that “life does teach, after all,” and that “changes have appeared in Vladimir Putin’s position. He has begun to think something, possibly different, about this war. But what?” He notes that alongside the new willingness to contemplate a third‑country summit only at the very end of a peace process, Putin also told journalists that the conflict was “coming to an end,” and concludes: “And still, in Vladimir Putin’s opinion, the end is near.”

“Trump’s Ukraine Policy Is Succeeding While His Iran Policy Flails,” Ross Douthat, New York Times, 05.05.26.

  • Ross Douthat writes that Trump’s second‑term crisis was expected to come from “appeasement and retreat” in Ukraine, yet “as Trump struggles to find an exit strategy from his Middle Eastern war of choice,” his Ukraine policy looks like “an effective rebalancing for a multipolar world.” He argues that “bravery, resilience and the drone war revolution” have kept Russia “stalemated,” leaving “the Putin regime” looking “more unstable and paranoid than at any point since the early days of the war,” while Europe has “stepped up as the United States steps back,” a pattern he calls “good news for our empire’s sustainability.”
  • Douthat stresses that Trump has “reduced American financial commitments while sustaining or increasing key forms of battlefield support,” including “longer‑range missiles and the intelligence sharing required to strike deeper into Russia,” and contends that Trump’s “crude bullying” has been a “geopolitical accelerant” forcing Europe to “break with its passive past.” By contrast, in Iran, Trump “let himself be talked into a high‑risk gambit by one ally, Israel,” leaving the United States “tied down” in a conflict where “there’s no clear path to burden sharing and no easy way for us to pivot out.”

“Ukraine Endgame: The Path to an Imperfect Peace,” J.P. Morgan Center for Geopolitics, 05.11.26.

  • The report says J.P. Morgan stresses that “the conflict has settled into a conditional stalemate; the frontlines have barely changed in the last two years,” and concluded that “the war will be decided at the negotiating table—not the battlefield.”
  • J.P. Morgan analysts judge that “a ‘Finland-like’ outcome is now the most likely path,” in which “Ukraine will likely be forced to accept territorial loss and limited security assurances while preserving sovereignty and continuing its westward integration—trading a just peace for a durable one.” They argue that “time and pressure favor Moscow,” pointing to “tightening financial constraints,” “growing strain on Western munitions,” and “increasing political pressure from Washington,” while “Russia has a longer runway and benefits from improving near-term economic conditions.” These dynamics, they write, are “likely to force Kyiv to accept a flawed and uneven settlement—most likely before power changes hands again in Washington and Putin loses what he may perceive to be his biggest ‘Trump’ card.”
  • The report warns that “Ukraine’s biggest risks are external—and increasingly structural,” citing “U.S. policy shifts, European political fragility, and ‘munitions math’ constraints—exacerbated by the Iran conflict” that “could quickly derail the current trajectory and weaken Ukraine’s negotiating position.” For businesses, they emphasize that “the terms of any settlement will be consequential,” since “a deal will almost certainly involve some relaxation of the sanctions architecture on Russia that has reshaped energy and commodity markets since 2022,” and that a settlement would “unlock what could be one of the largest reconstruction investment opportunities in a generation.” How the West supports Ukraine “through this endgame,” they conclude, “will shape how investors and governments price geopolitical risk for years to come.”

“Why a strong Ukraine and a clear EU mandate are key to any Putin talks,” Henry Foy, Financial Times (Europe Express), 05.10.26.

  • Henry Foy reports that EU foreign ministers are using rising chatter about “talking to Putin” to clarify that any engagement requires “a well‑armed Ukraine, and a clear sense of what Brussels would want to talk about.” Diplomats say the debate is “useful only inasmuch as it forces us to think about how we would get there and what we would want to say,” and many capitals “feel strongly that Putin has not shown any sign that he intends to have negotiations in good faith.” According to Foy, ministers want “additional military support so that Russia would be inclined to engage” and a clear mandate on “what it wants to achieve for Kyiv and for itself in any talks,” even as leaders such as Bart De Wever and António Costa publicly float the “potential” for re‑engagement with Moscow.

“We are living in the age of the middleman,” Ivan Krastev, Financial Times, 05.09.26.

  • Ivan Krastev argues that today’s “global condition… begins with Donald Trump’s social media posts and ends with the business interests of the US president’s friends and family,” and that Trump’s reliance on “friends and family as envoys” poses “systemic risks for Europe.” Citing an ECFR study, he says Trump’s envoy pattern “follows a pattern as recognisable as the signature rhythm of a Morse code operator,” and calls this “diplomacy without diplomats.” Yet he contends that “in a world without shared principles and functioning institutions, special envoys are a necessity,” because “the one thing holding the world together is the fact that it’s the same people negotiating to end the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran, and they are able to call the president at any time.” Krastev dubs Trump’s approach “theatrical hegemony” and “hierarchy without order,” in which “speed is more important than direction” and retribution for enemies and disloyal allies is inevitable, concluding that “the real meaning of power for Trump” is not imposing his will directly but “the ability to force [others] to solve your problems,” with special envoys like Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as the middlemen who make that possible.
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

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

“Trump, Putin, and Genghis Khan: An Interview with Fiona Hill,” Dan Kurz-Phelan, Foreign Affairs Interview podcast, 05.07.26.

  • Fiona Hill, member of the Harvard College Board of Overseers, is interviewed by Foreign Affairs’ Dan Kurz-Phelan.
  • DKP: “Do you find the analogies that some have drawn between Putin and Ukraine and Trump and Iran to be persuasive and illuminating?”
    • FH: “I do. I mean, the only thing is that the Ukrainians don't have that choke point, a chokehold that they can put on everybody. But in a similar way, they've managed to bog down a giant, a much larger military power in a place which is not on their home territory. I mean, the Russians think that Ukraine is home territory, but it's really not.”
  • DKP: “What is Putin concluding as he’s watching the war in Iran?”
    • FH: “Putin is even more hunkered down or bunkered down than he was before… The Ukrainians… are dispelling his sense of security at home in Russia. There’s starting to be a lot of grumbling internally now that Putin has basically taken this too far. Fifth year of war—what is the future of the country? The war in Ukraine has actually been a major blow to [Putin] over time. Just the attrition, the loss of life, the negative impacts that this has had on Russia.”
  • DKP: “The other dimension of the U.S.-Russia relationship that seems particularly worrying is on the nuclear front.”
    • FH: “I’m more worried about the proliferation issues at this particular point… if you’re sitting in Pyongyang and everywhere else that might be worried about your neighbors, you start to think: let’s accelerate where we are now.”
  • DKP: “How do you rate European action on Ukraine as the U.S. has reduced its support?”
    • FH: “Countries like the UK have been committed right from the beginning… Ukraine is at the cutting edge of future warfighting until the next war… The Europeans are leaning into that.”
  • DKP: “Is your expectation that the war will continue until there’s some exogenous shock that fundamentally changes dynamics?”
    • FH: “A very wise analyst in the UK described it to me last week as deadlock rather than stalemate.” 

“Vladimir Putin, the Man Who Broke Russia,” Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, 05.04.26.

  • Walter Russell Mead asks whether Vladimir Putin will be remembered as “the man who broke Russia,” arguing that the leader who once “outmaneuvered a series of clueless Western leaders” has made a “critical error” in Ukraine. Mead writes that Putin wrongly decided “Ukraine wasn’t a real country,” whose people “weren’t nationalist,” but instead found “a critical mass of Ukrainians… willing to fight and die,” led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “a gifted politician and diplomat who kept his people united at home while patiently amassing international support.” Even if Russia’s offensives regain some momentum, he contends, “any victory will be Pyrrhic,” while the more likely “agonizing stalemate” threatens both Putin’s grip on power and “the future of Russia itself.”
  • Mead argues that Russia now faces “the decline of Russian influence in Europe,” setbacks across the post‑Soviet space and Middle East, and an African “adventure” that “isn’t going well either.” He warns that the war is worsening “Russia’s demographic decline,” with “hundreds of thousands” killed or fled, and that these trends “potentially spell a crisis for the Russian Federation as serious as the meltdown following the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Unless Putin can “extricate himself from this predicament,” Mead concludes, he may be remembered as the leader under whom “Russia’s standing as a serious great power was finally and fatally lost.”

“How to Make Vladimir Putin’s Year,” Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, 05.04.26.

  • The WSJ editors write that “America’s friends in Europe are finally awake from their long nap after the Cold War and are spending more on their own defense,” and say “President Trump deserves credit for this progress,” but argue it is “especially regrettable that he’s squandering this alliance repair by threatening to yank a U.S. Army brigade from Germany.” With about 85,000 U.S. troops… in Europe, and Germany… the biggest outpost (roughly 35,000), they warn that Trump’s plan to pull 5,000 troops and his “anti‑NATO pique is sending a terrible message to Vladimir Putin,” especially as the war in Ukraine “is grinding on, at great human cost, with no peace settlement in sight” and “another day, another 268 Russian drones fired into Ukraine,” as the Institute for the Study of War reported.
  • They note that canceling a planned long‑range missile unit for Germany removes “the superior firepower that discourages Mr. Putin from provoking a crisis in the Baltic states,” and quote GOP defense leaders Mike Rogers and Roger Wicker that “rather than withdrawing forces… it is in America’s interest” to move the 5,000 troops east to allies like Poland, which spent 4.48% of GDP on defense in 2025, or Estonia at 3.38%. The board warns that Europe “is now sharing more of the military burden,” but “U.S. leadership is still essential,” and that retrenchment, while “Russia is also helping Iran bedevil the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz,” risks giving Putin “what he wants most: dividing the U.S. from Europe and blowing up NATO.”

“Trump Keeps Saying He Wants to Leave NATO. Maybe He Already Has,” Claudia Major, New York Times, 05.07.26.

  • Claudia Major argues that the real question is no longer whether Trump can legally quit NATO, but whether he has already hollowed out U.S. participation to the point that “deterrence… in the mind of the adversary” no longer works. She notes that after calling NATO a “paper tiger,” Trump ordered 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany, floated further withdrawals from Italy and Spain, and canceled a planned Tomahawk battalion deployment—moves that signal to both Europe and Russia that “America is [no longer reliably] coming” under Article 5. Combined with a Ukraine policy that “negotiates on terms largely set by Russia” and the Greenland and Iran episodes, Major contends, Europeans increasingly see Washington as “acting against Europe,” not with it.
  • In response, Europe is “quietly reimagining” deterrence and defense with “limited or no U.S. assistance,” she writes. Germany plans to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2029, Poland 4.8% this year, Estonia 5.4%, and Europeans are beginning to build “domestic deep-strike precision missiles—essentially, European Tomahawks.” On nuclear deterrence, the U.S. guarantee still exists, but France and Britain “are reviewing their policies”: the two signed a new nuclear pact in July 2025, and in March President Emmanuel Macron announced a French arsenal expansion and deeper cooperation with neighbors “with an eye toward creating a European deterrent.” Major concludes that while a rebalanced, pragmatic partnership with the U.S. is still possible, Europe must now prudently prepare for “chaos and hostility” if Washington proves permanently unreliable.

“In Fraught Geopolitical Times, Accountability for Russian Aggression Remains Crucial Despite U.S. Policy Reversals,” Federica D’Alessandra, Carnegie Endowment, 05.05.26. 

  • D’Alessandra notes that since Russia’s 2022 invasion, “nearly 10 million Ukrainians have… become refugees or been displaced,” with civilian casualties near “58,930” and Russian losses “as high as 35,000 per month,” figures she calls “a somber reminder of the human cost of senseless wars of conquest and imperialist ambitions.” Under Biden, she writes, the United States and Europe “supported Ukraine’s quest to hold Russia legally and financially accountable,” backing “an unprecedented sanctions regime” and “groundbreaking innovations in the legal and policy spheres,” from domestic and universal-jurisdiction prosecutions to ICC warrants for Putin and Shoigu and a special tribunal for the crime of aggression embedded in the Council of Europe.
  • She stresses that Ukraine has waged “lawfare” alongside military defense, “pursuing all avenues” before international courts to highlight that “Russia could do so as well” and that “in not exhausting all possibilities of nonmilitary recourse, Russia is legally responsible for its internationally wrongful acts.” Regionally, she argues, European institutions have mounted “an unprecedented mobilization,” reviving the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism, creating Eurojust’s International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression, freezing “210 billion euros” in Russian sovereign assets, and establishing a Register of Damage and an International Claims Commission so that “Ukrainian individuals, businesses, and state and municipal entities” can seek compensation—steps she calls “a crucial instrument in the broader legal and policy toolbox.”
  • By contrast, D’Alessandra writes, Trump’s return brought “a nearly complete reversal of Biden-era policies,” with the White House “no longer willing to hold the Kremlin and its military accountable,” pushing a peace plan that included “a blanket amnesty” and return of frozen assets, withdrawing from investigative arrangements, “dramatically reducing” DOJ war‑crimes work, dismantling USAID programs, and gutting the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice. She warns that the United States has “now joined” powers showing “contempt for norms prohibiting the use of force,” and argues that Europe and other “values-based” middle powers must now “step up and take an even greater leadership role,” since “salvaging the international laws, norms, and principles that guide responsible state behavior…could not be more urgent.”
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“A Renewed BRICS for a Polycentric World: From Global Chaos to Orderly Multipolarity,” Sergey Karaganov, Victoria Panova, Dmitry Suslov, Prokhor Tebin, Igor Makarov, and Alexandra Morozkina, BRICS Expert Council–Russia, 05.05.26. 

  • “This report lays out a strategic vision for the future development of BRICS as the preeminent global arrangement of the World Majority amid a world facing increasing chaos and conflict.”
  • “There is no alternative to BRICS in terms of overcoming the global governance vacuum amid the general crisis in the world order and the paucity and inadequacies of key legacy international institutions.”
  • “Over its nearly 20-year history, BRICS has undergone an impressive evolution from a group of the largest developing economies to the most authoritative institution of the World Majority.”
  • “BRICS has embodied the very multipolarity its members strive for and aspire to: a group without a hegemon, operating on the principle of consensus and respecting the civilizational uniqueness of each member state.”
  • “Despite all of its successes over nearly 20 years, BRICS has not yet become a key institution of global governance, nor has it been able to offer a new model of global development.”
  • “There is a risk that the BRICS’s current institutional capabilities may fall short of the sincere hopes that the World Majority countries are placing in the group to reform the global order and enhance their own influence in global affairs.”
  • “The emergence of multipolarity is the most important trend in global affairs… the U.S.-led global system of unipolarity effectively ended in the late 2000s.”
  • “The current emergence of a multipolar world is being accompanied by rising global disorder, chaos, and an alarming level of global ungovernability.”
  • “The Trump administration is actively dismantling the previous liberal order, yet it shows no readiness to embrace a multipolar world or become part of one.”
  • “The World Majority does not need just any form of multipolarity, especially not one that is chaotic, but rather what it needs is an ‘orderly multipolarity’ complemented by a new development paradigm and growth model.”
  • “It necessarily falls upon the developing countries of the World Majority to step up and play the key role in filling the global governance vacuum and shaping the rules and structures required for instituting an ‘orderly multipolarity.’”
  • “It is incumbent upon BRICS to step up and fill the existing deficit in global governance, compensate for the shortcomings of legacy institutions, including the UN, and promote their reform, thereby advancing the formation of an orderly multipolarity.”
  • “Transforming BRICS into a full-fledged global governance institution… requires both internal reform, i.e., institutionalization while maintaining flexibility, and more ambitious goal-setting with appropriate positioning on the international stage.”
  • “BRICS’s activities should be reformist, not revisionist.”
  • “Either BRICS will resolve to transform itself into a full-fledged institution of global governance, or it will gradually stagnate and lose any influence that it once may have had on the world stage.”

“Sergey Karaganov: ‘We Need to Formulate a New Ideology for Ourselves and for the World, Rooted in Serving the Individual,’” New Eastern Outlook, 05.07.26.

  • Karaganov argues that BRICS is “one of the foundations of the future world order, because it is based on cultural openness, mutual respect, and the rejection of diktat,” and predicts that “in 20 to 30 years, we will create a new system of international governance, in which one of the pillars will be BRICS and another will be the SCO.” To hold such a diverse bloc together, he insists that “we must formulate a new ideology for ourselves and for the world, rooted in serving the individual,” in which “our economy and our politics must serve the free, multicultural human being.”
  • He links this ideological project directly to a prolonged age of conflict, stating bluntly, “we have now entered what I 20 years ago called the ‘century of wars’. I hope it will not be a full century, but we are facing several decades of warfare.” In this context he calls Russia “a great Eurasian power” whose “future… lies in the East,” saying “we are not a European country. We are originally a Eurasian country,” and presents the “Greater Eurasian Partnership” as a way to “build balanced relations in Eurasia, where the power of China will be counterbalanced by India, Russia, Türkiye, Iran—the great civilizational states.”
  • On China and nuclear danger, Karaganov warns that “if there is no global thermonuclear war, [China] will become the world’s leading civilization,” and says Russia must both “be friends with it, including by building a system of counterbalances” and “create conditions so that under no circumstances does an ultranationalist government come to power in China, one that would embark on a path of expansion and aggression.” Given that “the West has de facto unleashed a world war (and it has already flared up),” he argues that “we need to think about creating a formal, say, five-year alliance with China in order to stop this revanchism of the West,” framing Russia’s strategic choices—including over war and nuclear risk—as part of a larger effort to build a post‑Western, multipolar order anchored in Eurasia.
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Missile defense:

  • No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

"The appearance and character of wars in the new era," Dmitry Trenin, Russian International Affairs Council, 05.06.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

  • Dmitry Trenin argues that “each major war changes its appearance, and each new era its character,” and that today’s wars mark “the completion of five hundred years of Western dominance and almost forty years of U.S. global hegemony.” Since the mid‑2010s, he writes, the world has entered “a new era of transition” that is “a functional analogue of a world war,” already fought “openly—in eastern Europe… and in the Middle East, and in the form of special operations—in Latin America,” while “the largest conflict is gradually maturing in East Asia and the western Pacific.”
  • Trenin contends that in Ukraine and the Middle East “a transition is taking place from a war of combat platforms… to a war of software solutions,” with a “drone revolution” and integrated ISR–strike systems in real time. He describes a 20–30 km “belt of total destruction” where “any piece of equipment and even an individual soldier can be guaranteed destroyed by FPV drones,” cancelling “the key tactical principle of concentrating forces for a breakthrough” and replacing tank offensives with “the seepage of small groups… two or three people.” Long‑range drones mean “remoteness of targets from the front line has ceased to be decisive”: Ukrainian UAVs “fly to targets as far as the Urals; Iranian ones—to Cyprus,” and the theater has “expanded practically without boundaries.”
  • He frames both the Ukraine war and the U.S.–Israeli war with Iran as “wars of attrition” and “infrastructure wars” in which energy systems are primary targets. In Ukraine, he notes, “already in the first months… opponents of Russia blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline,” while Kyiv struck pipelines like “Druzhba” and Russian refineries and export terminals so that “Ukrainian UAVs and USVs… had the aim of reducing exports of petroleum products and, accordingly, decreasing budget revenues.” In the Iran war, “for the first time in history Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz” and its allies threatened Bab el‑Mandeb, while “tankers, refineries, and other energy infrastructure in Iran and the Gulf states” came under attack; Tehran “openly resorts to economic weapons” to create “economic difficulties for the United States and its allies so as to induce them to end the war and back off from Iran.”
  • Strategically, Trenin writes that today’s wars “reflect the crisis of the American‑centric world order” and that “by provoking wars (in Ukraine) and initiating them (in the Middle East) the United States under Trump has gone over to a counter‑offensive” against “opponents (Russia, Iran) and rivals (China, BRICS countries, the EU, Arab Gulf states).” He argues that the Trump administration’s goal is “to impose by force a new (illiberal) model of unilateral world hegemony,” noting that in Iran Washington seeks “not only the complete elimination of the nuclear program, but also the destruction of the arsenal of ballistic missiles and regime change, the liquidation of the Islamic Republic and the dismemberment of the country.” At the same time, he warns that “nuclear nonproliferation… is receding into the past,” as great‑power proxy war in Ukraine aims at “strategic defeat of a nuclear superpower in its most sensitive strategic region,” and concludes that a “multipolar world has already become a multipolar nuclear world” in which Russia must be ready for “intensive and technologically complex confrontation” because “the struggle for a new world order will probably be long.”
  • On nuclear weapons, Trenin argues that at the strategic level there has been “a critical weakening of nuclear deterrence,” because the “saving fear” that “kept the Cold War cold” has disappeared. He notes that tasks now being set—such as “strategic defeat of a nuclear superpower” in Ukraine or, in Iran’s case, “not only complete elimination of the nuclear program, but also… regime change and dismemberment”—“would have been unthinkable in the Cold War era.” As fear ebbs, he writes, “limited nuclear war on a theater of operations is beginning to look like a quite workable option, not fraught with universal catastrophe.”
  • Trenin concludes that “nuclear nonproliferation… is going into the past together with control over strategic nuclear arms,” which formally ended with the expiry of New START in 2026, and that “the multipolar world has already become a multipolar nuclear world.” He points to debates over “European nuclear power,” possible Saudi–Pakistani arrangements, and latent Japanese and South Korean capabilities, arguing that “possession of [nuclear weapons] is increasingly seen as the only real guarantee against external aggression.” In this environment, he writes, Russia’s military power is “not only the pledge of the state’s existence, but also the cornerstone of stability” across much of Eurasia, and “our country’s potential, position and strategy will likely have decisive significance for the contours of the future world order.”
  • See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Counterterrorism:

“Al Qaeda Is on the March in Africa,” Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, 05.07.26. 

  • The editors warn that “Africa’s tumultuous Sahel region accounted for more than half of last year’s worldwide terrorism-related deaths,” and that in Mali “an al Qaeda affiliate and its allies are threatening to topple the ruling military junta.” Jama’at Nusrat al‑Islam wal‑Muslimin has “forged an alliance with ethnic Tuareg separatists” and launched a “coordinated offensive” in which “Mali’s defense minister, Gen. Sadio Camara, was killed,” with jihadists now “advancing on Timbuktu and seeking to lay siege to the capital of Bamako.” They note that after France and the UN left, Mali “turned for security help to Russia,” whose Africa Corps has been accused of “beheadings, rapes and other atrocities,” yet “those methods failed to protect Gen. Camara,” and caution that “Russia’s failure could soon become the West’s problem” as Islamic State seeks to exploit a vacuum and a refugee wave toward Europe looms.

Conflict in Syria:

  • No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

Energy exports from CIS:

“The Winners and Losers of the Iran Energy Shock: How the War Created a New Geopolitical Divide,” Benjamin H. Bradlow, Foreign Affairs, 05.11.26.

  • Bradlow writes that when “the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed in early March, choking off roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas,” states from the Philippines to Slovenia discovered “the political pitfalls of energy dependence,” with rationing, “national energy emergency,” and “political paralysis.” He argues that “countries dependent on imported fossil fuels have discovered that foreign governments can easily deprive them of an essential need—undermining their sovereignty,” while states with strong domestic or renewable systems, such as Pakistan, Spain, and Brazil, “have been comfortable speaking out” and even mediating the war. For many, he says, “the best way…to become energy independent is to invest more in renewables,” and because “the state that dominates the supply chain for these technologies is China,” Beijing “may emerge from the war in Iran as its winner—and Washington as its ultimate loser,” as Chinese firms like CATL and BYD gain and Southeast Asian elites “drift away from Washington” toward a partner that can supply solar, batteries, and EVs rather than vulnerable hydrocarbons.

“Will Germany resurrect the Nord Stream pipelines?,” Oliver Moody, The Times (UK), 05.05.26. 

  • Oliver Moody reports that a German study found three of Nord Stream’s four pipes “prohibitively difficult and expensive to repair” after the 2022 explosions, but that “one intact conduit, Strand B of Nord Stream 2, could theoretically be reactivated at any time with only a handful of legal formalities.” He notes that figures on the right, including CDU politicians, want that option if Russia makes peace and sanctions ease, as Germany still faces “some of the highest household energy prices in Europe” and relies on gas-fired plants for baseload. Yet Energy Minister Katherina Reiche insists, “We will do everything in our power to ensure that [a return of Nord Stream] does not materialize,” saying she has “no interest whatsoever” in letting Russia “profit” after bombing “a European neighbor into ruin.”
  • Reiche calls Germany’s 2023 nuclear exit “very clearly a mistake” and urges considering small modular reactors, arguing that AI-driven electrification means “if we do not want to meet that demand with coal…then nuclear energy becomes indispensable.” Moody notes her ministry wants 10 GW of new gas plants funded via an electricity levy, even as critics accuse her of bias toward gas and of commissioning pro‑gas arguments from a lobbyist. Reiche counters that if green-transition costs “keep spiralling upwards,” Germany risks “losing both our industrial base and our public support,” and she stresses that “Europe’s overall energy costs are several times higher than those in the United States or China,” pushing firms to invest elsewhere.
  • See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Climate change:

  • No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

  • No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“This Is Not the World Russia Wants: A Belligerent America Is Foiling Putin’s Strategy,” Hanna Notte, Foreign Affairs, 05.07.26.

  • Hanna Notte argues that although Russia “sought to increase its own global clout, unencumbered by restraints and rules,” its strategy depended on “Moscow unbound itself from rules while insisting that Washington remain shackled.” Instead, she writes, Donald Trump now “behave[s] more like Russia,” bashing multilateral institutions, quitting “66 international bodies, including 31 UN agencies,” delaying UN dues, and launching the rival “Board of Peace,” where “Trump has made it clear that he is the board’s supreme authority” and Russia would not enjoy Security Council‑style privileges.
  • Notte contends that Trump’s “might‑makes‑right foreign policy” has also exposed Russia’s limits: despite boasting that “great powers behave as great powers,” Putin’s war in Ukraine is bogged down in its fifth year while Trump, “in 2025…ordered the use of force against seven countries—more than any other U.S. president in the modern era,” including operations that removed Venezuela’s president and killed Iran’s supreme leader, leaving Moscow “a second‑tier player.” She concludes that although the Kremlin may hope Trump’s “hit‑and‑run belligerence” overextends the United States, Trump is effectively “taking over Russia’s mission” of dismantling the post–Cold War order, forcing Moscow to operate in “something messier, a world with no stable frameworks or reliable rules of the game.”

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Something is Happening: ACUTE UNCERTAINTY,” Bulletin No. 9 (183), Tatyana Stanovaya, R.Politik, 05.11.26. Clues from Russian Views.

  • Tatyana Stanovaya argues that talk of a coming coup against Putin, amplified by European intelligence leaks and Western media, is “more speculative and psychological than real,” even if it has had a real effect in “fuel[ing] uncertainty inside the elite and weaken[ing] Putin’s image of control.” She identifies three main reasons a coup remains unlikely. 
    • First, Putin “remains the country's central political figure, with high approval ratings even after the recent decline,” and “the mood among ordinary Russians is not so much anti‑Putin as defensive about the encroachment of the state on their private spheres,” with “extremely low” appetite for revolution or mass protest. Among elites, she says, fear that any alternative would mean “destabilisation, escalation, Western interference and accountability for war crimes” paradoxically makes the current regime “more sustainable than it looks.”
    • Second, Stanovaya emphasizes that “Putin is the principal guarantor of the FSB, which has been steadily acquiring power and influence under his rule,” so “moving against Putin would amount to political suicide, given the FSB's political and administrative dominance.” Figures like Mishustin or Shoigu, she notes, are not close to Putin and would be acting “under acute personal risk of prosecution,” with “little chance of uniting a large part of the elite around them.” Media speculation that the arrest of Shoigu ally Ruslan Tsalikov could trigger a coup, she writes, reflects a general fear that high‑profile criminal cases may “quietly turn parts of the elite against Putin,” not that any one of them is in a position to act.
    • Third, she argues that “in the eyes of the Russian elite the West has lost all attractiveness as a potential ally,” and “there is no expectation of the West being capable of pragmatic interactions with Russia in the event of Putin's replacement.” The anticipation is that “Western policy towards Russia will remain hostile even after Putin is gone,” which “works to unify the elite — at least to the extent of avoiding any infighting that would destabilise the political system.” In this sense, she concludes, elite calculations still favour “sticking with the devil they know,” even as dissatisfaction with Putin’s handling of the war, the economy, and crises grows louder in private.
  • Precisely because there is no agreed successor, because the repressive apparatus is loyal to Putin, and because the West offers no reassuring alternative, she expects this uncertainty to “deepen repression rather than break into open crisis,” with the system likely to become harsher and more brittle rather than collapsing suddenly.

“Putin’s Strongman Image Is Fading as Ukraine Brings War Home to Russia,” Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, 05.06.26.

  • Yaroslav Trofimov writes that as Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine has now lasted longer than the Soviet “Great Patriotic War” against Nazi Germany, Vladimir Putin’s carefully cultivated Victory Day cult is “backfiring on him.” On the eve of the May 9 parade, he notes, Putin “has no victories to celebrate”: more than one million Russian casualties, a stalled front, and “persistent Ukrainian drone strikes across Russia, including on the capital,” have forced the Kremlin to request a temporary cease-fire and to “dramatically downgrad[e]” the event—banning tanks and cadets while planning days-long shutdowns of cellphone and internet service. Ukrainian strikes have put “some 70% of Russia’s population… within Kyiv’s range” and, with refinery attacks at places like Tuapse and Ust-Luga, brought pollution and explosions to tourist regions and provincial cities that once watched the war from afar.
  • Trofimov reports that this new vulnerability is eroding Putin’s protector image; one analyst tells him “Putin is perceived today as an old grandpa…no longer seen as Superman.” Nationalist bloggers complain that “grandfathers…already reached Berlin by now” while today’s Russia merely “shak[es] our fists,” and even influencers like Victoria Bonya, once apolitical, now tell Putin publicly that “you don’t know what is happening in the country,” warning that people are being “squeezed into a spring” that may snap. Rumors of coups and “collective psychosis,” corruption arrests around former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and harsh new internet blocks have produced what Trofimov calls a “deep sense of discontent” that is “more insidious” than Prigozhin’s failed 2023 mutiny: the Kremlin still has the means to crush revolt, former U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan says, but in Russia, “when they happen, they happen fast”—a scenario he now considers “possible.”

“Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia,” The Economist, 05.08.26.

  • A former senior Russian official writes that “Vladimir Putin has led Russia into a dead-end and nobody has a map for what comes next,” arguing that elites have stopped saying “we” and now call the war “his story, not ours.” The author contends that the Kremlin “still has a monopoly on violence, but has lost its monopoly on shaping the future,” as Putin’s war—launched to preserve the system—has produced four corrosive trends: a war “paid for nationally” through inflation, taxes and repression without any shared purpose; elites forced to resolve conflicts at home after “some 5 trillion rubles ($60bn)” in assets were seized, creating a “demand for rules;” a collapsing external order that strips Russia of the asymmetric advantages of its gas, UN seat and nuclear status; and intensifying ideological control that demands loyalty “without being told what future that loyalty serves.”
  • All four forces, the author argues, create a political “Zugzwang: when every move worsens the position.” The regime can persist “for as long as Mr. Putin remains in power,” but “his every move to preserve and expand it accelerates decay,” since more repression or “another war…would only make things worse.” Putin, the author concludes, “cannot restore the connection between power and the future”; he can only make the eventual rupture “bloodier and more dangerous.”

“Vladimir Putin is Much Weaker than You Think,” Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy, 05.07.26.

  • Christian Caryl reports that a leaked Kremlin document leaked by an European intelligence service shows Putin’s paranoia has “reached a whole new level:” visitors face “two layers of screening,” his bodyguards “exercise full control over his schedule,” “no one who works near Putin is now allowed” a normal mobile phone, and “surveillance systems have been placed in the homes of the cooks, drivers, and cleaners who work for him,” who are barred from public transport. According to the leak, “he and his family members no longer live in their customary residences” and “now works only in bunkers dispersed around southern Russia,” a shift Caryl links to U.S. and Israeli operations that “snatch[ed] Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro” and killed Iran’s Ali Khamenei, as well as Ukrainian assassinations such as the car‑bomb killing of Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov in Moscow.
  • On the battlefield, Caryl writes that “a Russian offensive planned for this spring has been derailed,” citing Ukrainian claims of “35,000 casualties on the Russians in March alone,” the fifth month where losses exceeded recruitment, with “no major objectives” gained. “Time is not on Russia’s side in this war,” Michael Kofman tells him. By contrast, “the Ukrainians have now actually pushed the Russians back” in places and “seem to have an endless supply of new ideas,” from drones that closed “all four of Moscow’s international airports” to long‑range strikes that hit an airfield 1,100 miles away in Chelyabinsk and refineries whose damage Reuters says cut “Russia’s oil export capacity by 40%.” Caryl notes that in Q1 “Russia’s budget deficit already exceeded its full‑year target,” with officials citing “a 45% drop in oil and gas revenues.”
  • Caryl concludes that while losing Mali “won’t be enough to cost Putin his throne,” losing in Ukraine “certainly could,” especially combined with “a stagnant economy, restless oligarchs, and a population riled by the Kremlin’s recent crackdown on the internet.” Even pro‑war bloggers now concede that “little by little, the advantage is going to our enemies… the enemy is counterattacking, and he is succeeding,” he writes.

“Pro-Kremlin lawyer’s turn against Putin reveals rift in Russian power circles,” Catherine Belton, Washington Post, 05.06.26. 

  • Catherine Belton reports that Ilya Remeslo, a longtime “Kremlin attack lawyer and propagandist,” shocked Moscow by calling Putin “a war criminal and a thief” and demanding his resignation, then being confined to a psychiatric hospital yet “freed after 30 days,” an outcome he attributes to factional support. Remeslo tells Belton that “part of the system is already starting to work against Putin” and that “the scale of dissatisfaction is colossal,” likening the mood to “the end of the Soviet Union.” He describes “a very big battle for power” between Sergei Kiriyenko’s presidential‑administration technocrats and the FSB, saying “Putin does not have a single fist which only works for him. They are all working against each other.” 
  • Belton writes: “As cracks appear in the Russian elite over the war against Ukraine, the deteriorating Russian economy and repressive restrictions, including limits on internet access, Remeslo’s turnabout and continuing open defiance signify a broader divide in the upper reaches of Kremlin power, according to a Russian official, a prominent opposition figure and analysts. The Russian official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.” “The scale of dissatisfaction is colossal,” Remeslo said in the interview with The Post.
  • “Kremlin watchers say the criticism is part of an internal conflict between a faction in the Russian presidential administration led by Remeslo’s former boss, Sergei Kiriyenko, the technocratic first deputy Kremlin chief who oversees Russia’s political apparatus, and the Federal Security Service (FSB) where Putin built his career.” “A very big battle for power is going on,” Remeslo said, noting he remains in contact with some former allies in Russian power structures. “The FSB and the administration are very much in conflict.”
  • Citing a European intelligence report and other sources, Belton details the FSO’s tightened personal security around Putin, internal clashes over draconian internet restrictions, and fears of figures such as Sergei Shoigu, while Remeslo claims “about half the Kremlin administration shares his view,” quietly “snicker[ing] at Putin” even as they fear jail and asset seizures, and predicts that “Putin will be toppled at some moment by his own circle when he stops being convenient for them completely.”

“Rumors of Instability in Moscow,” Yoshua Jaffa, The New Yorker, 05.08.26.

  • Joshua Yaffa writes that Putin’s rule has rested on a mythology that he is “the country’s unitary authority and arbiter, the one figure who can hold together Russia’s many factions, clans, and interests,” and that for the elite “it is safer and more profitable to have Putin in charge than to face a Hobbesian all-against-all struggle.” Yet a political insider tells him, “Just about everyone would like to stop the war tomorrow—that’s obvious. There’s not a single person, other than Putin and the military brass, who wants to keep on fighting. But no one would ever dare to express their displeasure.”
  • Yaffa argues that after the Wagner mutiny, the recent “series of events—none of which, on their face, are as dramatic as an armed uprising—has created a sense that the political system is at once tightly controlled and utterly rudderless.” Farida Rustamova tells him, “On the one hand, the regime is more airless than ever… All the screws have been tightened to the max,” yet “it’s also never been as chaotic and unpredictable,” with officials sensing that “the old rules are breaking down, and no one knows what the new ones are, or whether they exist at all.”
  • The main driver, he writes, is “the seemingly unresolvable deadlock in Ukraine.” Putin shifted to “a war of attrition,” but so far in 2026 “Russia is advancing at roughly half the rate it did last year,” and in some areas “Ukraine has actually recaptured small swaths of territory.” Ukraine’s innovations in “unmanned and A.I.-driven systems” have helped create a “kill zone” stretching “for ten miles or more,” collapsing the distinction between front and rear and blunting Russia’s “slow-moving steamroller.”
  • Trump’s return, Yaffa writes, “was expected to provide a newfound advantage for Russia in its negotiations with Ukraine,” and Russian officials speak of a “‘spirit of Anchorage’” from the Trump–Putin summit in Alaska. According to a member of the Russian elite, Putin left believing “that Trump would convince the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to withdraw from the parts of the Donbas that are currently under Ukraine’s control” and freeze the rest of the front line. “Well, it turned out that Trump and his team haven’t managed to do this,” the source says. “So the war continues, even as few like that fact.”

“‘Emotional Reboot’ of the Ultranationalists: The Presidential Administration Is Figuring Out How to ‘Sell’ the End of the War to the Public,” Dossier Center, 05.07.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Dossier Center reports that “staff of the Presidential Administration were already, back in February 2026, working out the so called ‘image of victory’—propaganda narratives with which a peace agreement with Ukraine can be ‘sold’ to Russians despite heavy losses among Russian troops and the absence of any significant results.” On Staraya Ploshchad, the authors say, officials propose “forcing the most radical Z bloggers to publicly ‘change their tune,’ to portray the killing of Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield as ‘denazification,’ and to insist that Russia never planned to take Kyiv,” while “ordinary Russians are being promised something like a thaw.” One slide bluntly states: “‘YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHEN TO STOP. Overreach means defeat; continuing the Special Military Operation would be a Pyrrhic victory,’” reflecting “serious worry” in the political bloc about the front and the economy.
  • According to the leaked presentation, the Kremlin’s political curators assume a deal in which “the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions would go to Russia, and the division of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions would be fixed along the line of contact,” with Russian troops withdrawing from Sumy and Kharkiv; “European sanctions would remain in place, while American ones would be lifted,” “denazification… merely symbolic,” and “Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy would remain in power.” The document lists the risks of fighting on as “depletion of resources, the need to raise taxes, cutbacks in business, the threat of drone attacks, strikes deep into the country’s territory and terrorism, a demographic crisis and the replacement of Russians by migrants, as well as the possibility of losing to the United States in the redivision of the new world order.”
  • Dossier stresses that the slide deck “is not directly related to the course of the negotiations and rather reflects the expectations of the political bloc… in the context of planning propaganda campaigns,” but notes that the scenario “generally coincides with Russia’s demands” in now‑stalled talks: “staff on Staraya Ploshchad intend to present such a compromise outcome as a great victory and a personal achievement of the president.” One of the key theses reads: “‘Putin bent the West. We foiled the West’s plans to expand and prolong the conflict,’” and the war’s end “should be perceived as a victory not over Ukrainian nationalism but over a much stronger adversary in the form of the ‘collective West.’” The “main achievements,” in this telling, are “territorial gains, natural resources, a land route to Crimea and the coast of the Sea of Azov… as well as the acquisition of millions of new Russian speaking compatriots,” plus the “cleansing” of elites who fled.
  • The document frankly acknowledges the danger that “if a war that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens ends without visible achievements, some segments of Russian society may react negatively.” It identifies the Z‑community as “the most problematic audience,” describing them as “extremely emotional ‘armchair patriots’ who have not taken part in the war themselves and are overly focused on the capture of Kyiv.” The plan is to engineer an “emotional reversal” among prominent Z‑bloggers, promote more moderate voices, and threaten those who resist with losing their patriotic status and prosecution for discrediting the army. Returning veterans are to be “bought off” with support to start businesses in the “reconstruction of the new territories” and channels into parties, commemorations, or mercenary contracts with the Africa Corps, while stories of veteran crime are to be suppressed in favor of “peaceful reintegration.”
  • For “ordinary Russians tired of the war and of problems,” Staraya Ploshchad is preparing “a series of good news”: a promised “controlled thaw” in cinema and literature, “bringing political humor back to television, rehabilitating the word ‘peace,’ and even carrying out a limited amnesty.” All this unfolds, Dossier notes, against a reported struggle inside Putin’s circle between the Presidential Administration, which “propose[s] controlling the situation with the help of political technologies,” and the FSB’s Second Service, which “insists on further ‘tightening the screws.’” The presentation itself tries to square that circle, concluding that “it is good that we did not drag things out to an economic catastrophe. Putin’s goal is the peaceful development of the country and people’s quality of life… but under conditions of a war of attrition, development recedes into the background”—a line that encapsulates how the Kremlin hopes to sell ending the war as both necessity and triumph.

“The Kremlin’s secret plans for post-war Russia,” Owen Matthews, The Spectator, 05.08.26.

  • Owen Matthews reports that a leaked top‑level Kremlin policy document, “Images of Victory,” shows apparatchiks “working hard on selling an inevitable stalemate to the Russian people by dressing it up as a species of victory.” The paper warns that “continuing the war carries serious dangers for Russia’s economy and society,” with a chapter titled “One Must Know When to Stop” and the blunt line: “Overreach is defeat; continuing the SMO would be a Pyrrhic victory.” According to Dossier Center, its authors are Kiriyenko’s “curators of the political bloc,” tasked with “developing the information framework for a possible end to the war.”
  • Matthews says the document lays out propaganda narratives to persuade Russians to accept a peace “that falls far short” of initial aims: that Russia “prevent[ed] a humanitarian catastrophe in Donbas,” proved its army “the most combat‑ready in the entire world” which “held firm in a global confrontation against 50 countries,” and that the main achievements are “territorial gains, a land route to Crimea, and the acquisition of millions of new Russian‑speaking citizens.” It even touts the “cleans[ing]” of “elites who betrayed it” and promises a post‑war “controlled thaw” with “normalization, social projects, business success stories,” “rehabilitation of the word ‘peace’,” and “a limited amnesty for political dissidents.”
  • Strikingly, Matthews notes, the authors “acknowledge that Ukraine will survive unconquered and even that Volodymyr Zelenskyy will remain its President,” and identify “couch patriots” focused on taking Kyiv as the most dangerous dissenters. The plan is to engineer an “emotional reversal” among Z‑bloggers, promote moderates, and threaten hold‑outs with prosecution, while “redirect[ing]” veterans into reconstruction, politics, or contracts with the Africa Corps. The paper assumes Luhansk and Donetsk will be annexed in full, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson divided along the line of control, EU sanctions remaining while U.S. sanctions lift, and that peace will be shaped by “agreements between the U.S. and Russia, then between the U.S. and Ukraine,” prompting Matthews to ask whether “the czar will heed his minions’ sensible advice.”

“Russia’s economy contracts for first time since 2023,” Alexander Kolyandr and Alexandra Prokopenko, The Bell, 05.06.26.

  • As experts have been predicting for months, Russia’s economy has entered a contraction. On Wednesday, the Economic Development Ministry published the first official GDP figures for the first quarter of 2026, showing that the economy shrank by 0.3% year-on-year. It was the first quarterly fall since early 2023.
  • The monthly dynamics are uneven. GDP dropped by 1.8% in January, then 1.1% in February, before climbing back by 1.8% in March—smoothing the overall picture but not enough to bring it into positive territory.
  • Business activity is declining: the Central Bank’s business climate indicator dropped into negative territory in February for the first time since 2022, and Sberindex recorded a 2.2% drop in business turnover, also the first since 2022. Sberbank itself has lowered its GDP growth forecast for 2026 to 0.5-1%.
  • The economy is contracting after two years of serious overheating. Unemployment remains near a historic low of 2.2%, but this is not a sign of a healthy economy. It’s a consequence of a labor shortage, which stifles potential for growth and simultaneously drives up wages. 
  • The Central Bank is sticking with its forecast for growth of between 0.5–1.5% this year, while the Economic Development Ministry is officially predicting 1.3%. But we already know that this will be reduced in May.
  • A 0.3% drop in the first quarter is no catastrophe. But it is an important indicator: years of fiscal stimulation, fueled by military spending, have finally stopped driving growth. Putin ordered officials to bring the economy back to growth, but his government has no tools to make this happen without loosening fiscal or budgetary policy, which would unleash the inflation it has so carefully suppressed.

“In Russia, the Public Mood is Souring,” Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, 05.07.26.

  • Baunov writes that “something in the air has changed in Russia. Now even loyalists complain about the mounting restrictions and repression, and once-upbeat businesspeople are now despondent,” and that “attitudes toward President Vladimir Putin are changing.” He argues that “Putin is losing his magic. Power remains undivided in his hands, but its spell is fading,” as “people increasingly see an old man with scrawny legs and shrinking muscles under his baggy suit,” and that “Putin no longer inspires confidence, even among the ruling elite. Instead of a guarantor, he is becoming a liability.”
  • He says the Kremlin’s post‑2022 social tradeoff—“you can live outside of the war, but you cannot be against it”—has been “unceremoniously violated,” leaving society “angry”: “People did not agree to ignore the war only to become the target of prohibitions and repressions themselves, and now feel cheated and deceived.” Bans on WhatsApp and Telegram, a push toward the transparent Max app, higher VAT and tighter fiscal tracking make people feel “their privacy has been rudely invaded” and “this is another way for the state to go after their money.”
  • Baunov stresses that “the Ukrainian armed forces’ ability to deliver devastating blows to oil refineries, storage facilities, and other sites across almost all of Russia has forced the Russian regime to break the terms of its arrangement with a loyal majority,” and concludes that “the Russian government is now visibly motivated by fear,” with “the fading magic…replaced with coercion,” so that “the system remains in place, but is being displaced, and is no longer seen as it once was,” opening “unexpected possibilities, both appealing and terrifying.”

“Russians no longer believe Putin’s war propaganda,” Owen Matthews, The Spectator, 05.07.26. 

  • Owen Matthews writes that this year Victory Day “fireworks have been caused by long-range Ukrainian attack drones slamming into refineries, pumping stations and factories deep inside Russia,” from Tuapse, where “fireballs of burning gasoline 15 stories high erupted over the local oil refinery,” to Perm, where attacks “created a toxic cloud 80 miles wide” and triggered a regional chemical emergency. Yet, “as Perm burned, [Putin] appeared on TV discussing cabbage-salting techniques,” and at a cabinet meeting he insisted there had been “no serious damage” from the strikes.
  • “Increasingly, Russians are ceasing to believe him,” Matthews argues, quoting Alexander Baunov that “attitudes toward Putin are shifting,” “economic optimism is fading,” and “there is a growing recognition that the war cannot be won—a war that has itself changed, eroding Russia’s advantages.” With Putin’s “special military operation” now lasting longer than the USSR’s World War II and “at least 220,000 Russians killed in action,” “the reality that their country is at war is…finally coming home to many ordinary Russians.” A taboo on direct criticism “has evaporated,” as influencers and commenters call the authorities “corrupt and worthless grandchildren who’ve squandered the achievements of their ancestors” and mock that “the demilitarization is going according to plan, but there’s a nuance.”
  • Formerly hard‑line patriots are turning on the regime. “We’re fucked, just totally fucked,” Z‑blogger Yevgeny Golman says; “Eighty% of my friends closed down their businesses. The system failed. They’ve been lying to Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] and they keep on lying.” From jail, Igor Girkin writes: “Unfortunately, we are heading toward military defeat. That is a fact.” 
  • In addition Matthews highlights Maxim Kalashnikov’s warning that “after the change of the central figure of power, as a result of this un-triumphant war, a period of chaos and instability is inevitable,” and his observation that “although, for the time being, the security forces keep Russian society in check, the process of forming new centers of political activism among citizens is intensifying,” while even TV hawk Vladimir Solovyov now admits that “prolonged war is bad” and compares Putin’s position to Napoleon’s, “who exhausted his resources and lost.”

“What Awaits Us After the War and the Transit?,” Maxim Kalashnikov, Roy TV Telegram channel, 04.27–05.01.26.

  • Kalashnikov writes that Russia lives “in the conditions of a mutated Brezhnev‑era‑2, ‘old songs about the main thing’” and declares, “I can say with confidence that this war will destroy the current political and economic system.”
  • He argues that “it could only have won with a blitzkrieg. Having failed it and allowed a many‑year positional slaughter, it signed its own death sentence,” because the basis of the “social contract,” his “Big Deal‑2,” has been “destroyed.”
  • Under this deal, “the nomenklatura (now called the elite) is guaranteed inviolability of its status, privileges and property… and no purges and repressions,” while “the lower classes” lose “all political rights” but receive “consumer joys, entertainment, vices at night and… the possibility of small business.”
  • Now, he contends, “the positional war of exhaustion brings down Big Deal‑2”: the new nomenklatura “is deprived of inviolability… property is taken away, personnel are thrown behind bars,” while “the lower classes… are becoming poorer, they are crushed by taxes, deprived of the Internet and vices.”
  • “Thus, the existing ruling group hangs in the air. The social base is going away. It is impossible to sit on the apparatus of violence alone,” he argues, so “events will begin… precisely with a fronde at the top,” and “the squeezing out of the central figure as having exhausted his resource.”
  • After the “Transit (change of the central figure of power),” Kalashnikov predicts “an inevitable period of chaos and instability,” including “an inevitably weak and indecisive” successor, “inevitable inter‑clan struggle,” a “thaw” via easing internet bans, “convulsive economic reforms,” “an inevitable surge of crime,” and “inevitable radicalization of moods in the lower classes… creating a threat of an analogue of the late 1980s and early 90s… at least for a couple of years.”

“Stalin, Putin and the history of poisoned Russian minds,” Andrew Cowley, Financial Times, 05.06.26. 

  • Reviewing three books, Andrew Cowley argues that the war in Ukraine is “the latest manifestation of a mindset that has been decades, if not centuries, in the making.” Citing Marc Bennetts’s The Descent, he describes a Russia “soaked in Putinism,” where soldiers are “not so much brainwashed zombies as unfeeling grunts” shaped by nihilism and propaganda so extreme that a TV segment claims “there aren’t enough women [in Europe], so men rape dogs.” Andrei Kolesnikov’s The Closing of the Russian Mind portrays Russia as “a country with no future,” where Putin has shifted from mere authoritarianism to “neo-totalitarian” rule demanding active ideological conformity built on five pillars: great‑power status, a 1,000‑year flawless history, Orthodox “Third Rome” destiny, pride in even Stalinist repression, and the mantra that “whoever is not with us is a traitor.”
  • Cowley notes that Kolesnikov sees the roots of this imperial ideology “deep within the historical and sociocultural consciousness” rather than in NATO’s policies, and that history’s “use, and abuse” is central to controlling minds—Putin’s 2024 decree on state historical policy being emblematic. Simon Morrison’s A Kingdom and a Village traces a millennium of Moscow’s choices, from Alexander Nevsky’s alliance with steppe powers over the West to Ivan the Terrible’s oprichnina, suggesting a recurrent pattern in which “dictatorship” and expansion “to prevent contraction” are the default. Together, the books imply that Putin has intensified long‑standing imperial and authoritarian currents; as one of Kolesnikov’s friends toasts, “May we all survive this,” only for another, born under Stalin, to reply, “No one has ever managed to do so.”

“Russia is running out of workers,” Alexander Kolyandr, The Spectator, 05.04.26. 

Defense and aerospace:

“President’s speech at the military parade,” Vladimir Putin, Kremlin.ru, 05.09.26.

  • Putin opened by calling May 9 “our sacred, inspiring and most important holiday,” saying Russians “feel pride and love for our country” and have “a common duty to protect the interests and the future of our Motherland.” He praised the “great generation of victors,” insisting that “we will always remember the heroism of the Soviet people and the fact that it was their decisive contribution that made the defeat of Nazism possible” and that they “saved their country and the entire world, put an end to total and merciless evil.”
  • Turning to the present, he said “the great feat of the victorious generation inspires the soldiers carrying out the tasks of the special military operation today,” claiming they are “confronting an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc,” but that “despite this, our heroes are advancing.” He lauded “workers, designers, engineers, scientists and inventors” who “continue the traditions of their predecessors” by “creat[ing] advanced and unique models of weapons, and launch[ing] their mass production,” presenting the war effort as a national mobilization linking front and rear.
  • He concluded “I firmly believe that our cause is just! We are together! Victory has always been and will always be ours!” 
  • See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

“No, Russia is not on the verge of a coup,” Mark Galeotti, The Spectator, 05.04.26. 

  • Mark Galeotti argues that the report from an anonymous “European intelligence agency” about Kremlin fears of a coup “looks suspiciously more like a psy-op…than a serious assessment.” He allows that “it is entirely plausible that security around the President has been stepped up,” since an ageing Putin “may indeed fear direct Ukrainian attack” and his FSO praetorians are “professionally paranoid,” but insists that “it is the talk of a coup…which seems the least credible.”

  • “The Russian security system is carefully organized to minimize the risk of a coup,” the author writes, with “various military and paramilitary forces” balancing each other and the FSO empowered “to monitor whomever it feels it must.” Presenting Sergei Shoigu as a would‑be putschist is “especially laughable,” Galeotti contends, given that he has borne “the brunt of criticism” for failures in Ukraine and seen his cronies purged. He warns that Europe’s “desperate appetite…for a deus ex machina” makes it vulnerable to “dodgy intelligence” and suggests this story may be “a deliberate deception” meant “to get Putin to turn on Shoigu” or sow paranoia among Russia’s elite.

     

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“Kenya: Russia’s African Recruitment Web Is Expanding,” Maurice Oniang’o, Foreign Policy, 05.05.26. 

  • Maurice Oniang’o writes that Clinton Nyapara Mogesa’s path from a plumbing job in Qatar to dying in eastern Ukraine “reflects a broader pattern across Africa, where promises of overseas employment can become entry points into a distant war.” Ukrainian military intelligence assessed that Mogesa was carrying the passports of two other Kenyans “recruited under similar circumstances,” the author notes. Citing Kenya’s National Intelligence Service, Oniang’o reports that “more than 1,000 Kenyans have been recruited to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine,” with dozens hospitalized, repatriated, missing, or at the front. Recruiters include “local agencies—some operating informally, others as registered labor export firms—working with intermediaries linked to networks in Russia and the Middle East,” offering salaries of about $2,700 a month and even fast‑tracked citizenship.
  • “These are not soldiers who signed up to fight,” human-rights worker Fred Ojiro said; “they are young men who believed they were traveling for ordinary jobs and instead found themselves in a war with no way out,” according to the author. Oniang’o adds that recruitment “has taken root through informal networks” across Africa, while Kenya has “taken the strongest approach” via arrests, asset freezes, and diplomatic pressure, even as families like Mogesa’s “are still waiting” to bring bodies home.

“Tricked Into Fighting for Russia,” Katrin Bennhold, New York Times, 05.04.26.

  • Katrin Bennhold writes that Russia, which “has been losing about 1,000 soldiers a day to death or injury, according to Western estimates,” has turned from prisoners and cash incentives at home to “recruiting more aggressively abroad, most recently in Africa.” She highlights the case of Kenyan Vincent Awiti, who says he was “promised a job as a shop worker in Russia” but, after arriving in St. Petersburg, “was coerced into signing a military contract,” given four days of training, and sent to the front near Vovchansk, where corpses floated “like water lilies.” On the front line, she notes, Awiti felt “overpowered by terror” and “guilt,” saying he had gone to Russia to earn money for his family.
  • Bennhold argues that Africa’s youth boom and job scarcity leave many “looking for work abroad,” where “many fall prey to exploitative agencies” and “false promises of well-paid civilian work” that lead to forced service. She notes that social media posts tout Russian military service with “lump-sum payments of $18,000 and monthly salaries of up to $3,000,” which “would be a financial bonanza” for many Africans. While some governments, like Kenya and South Africa, have protested to Moscow, Bennhold observes that many states “appear to have done little to protect their citizens,” even as returnees like Awiti, “deeply scarred,” still “need a job.”

Ukraine:

“Taiwan Could Learn From Ukraine. Informally, Connections Are Growing,” Maria Varenikova and Amy Chang Chien, New York Times, 05.05.26. 

  • Maria Varenikova and Amy Chang Chien report that, despite no official ties, “a loose network led by company executives and volunteers is bridging some of that gulf” between Ukraine and Taiwan, as both face “the threat of conquest by much larger hostile neighbors.” A Taiwanese volunteer fighter, identified only as Lee, says, “The war will happen one day with China, and then my experience will be valuable,” and argues that Taiwan “should adopt the inventive arsenal of flying, swimming and crawling robots that Ukraine has used to even the odds.” Officials in Taipei acknowledge that “Ukraine’s experience in using drones in real combat environments is highly valuable,” even as “wartime secrecy” and fear of angering China constrain formal cooperation, the authors note.
  • The reporters write that Taiwan has become “a ‘gateway for Chinese parts’” for Ukrainian drone makers, with Taiwanese firms routing drones through Eastern Europe so that “most ultimately wound up in Ukraine.” They describe reciprocal business ties in which Western and Taiwanese defense companies market systems “battle-tested in Ukraine” and ask Ukrainian engineers to design for Taiwan’s needs, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insists Ukrainian drones abroad should be sold as full “subscriptions” rather than just hardware.

“Zelenskyy and Ukraine Are in a World of Trouble,” Ted Snider, The American Conservative, 05.10.26.

  • Ted Snider contends that “a world of trouble is dawning for Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” arguing “not just because they are losing the war, which they are,” and that “Russia’s gains are not spectacular, but they are steady. They are slowly absorbing Donbas.” He writes that “Ukraine will not recover its lost territories,” noting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s remark that a peace treaty “may be that part of Ukraine’s territory is no longer Ukrainian,” and that “the NATO dream is dead” while even EU “membership light… is a distant hope.”
  • Internally, Snider says “Ukrainians may be ready for a new leader,” citing polling where “72% of Ukrainians trust former Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhny… 70% trust… Kyrylo Budanov, while only 62% trust Zelenskyy,” a number that later drops to 58%. He notes that “only 28% of Ukrainians say they want to see Zelenskyy stay on as president after the war” and that some “closed polls” suggest “he would probably lose to Budanov,” while Zelenskyy faces “unfamiliar resistance from within his own party” and a super‑majority “at risk as a result of defections.”
  • Snider highlights “an ongoing corruption scandal” involving “a $100 million kickback scheme,” charges against Zelenskyy’s inner circle, and new tapes that “appear to show people who are very close to Zelenskyy… swaying then‑Defense Minister Rustem Umerov’s decisions.” Demographically, he warns that “a convergence of factors is shrinking Ukraine’s population to near extinction,” pointing to a CIA finding that Ukraine had “the lowest birth rate and the highest death rate in the world,” UN projections of “a population of 16 million by 2050,” and adding that the “American‑Israeli war on Iran is making things even more hopeless, depleting stocks of weapons that Ukraine needs,” so that “militarily, politically and demographically, Ukraine’s prospects are dimming.”

“To Accept or Not To Accept: The question of Ukraine’s integration into the EU has brought Kyiv and its European allies to the brink of conflict,” Re:Russia, 05.07.26.

  • Re:Russia notes that Viktor Orbán’s defeat “has opened the door to the practical implementation of plans for the country’s accession to the European Union,” but “paradoxically, has immediately brought Kyiv and its European allies to the brink of conflict.” Zelenskyy is pushing “rapid accession…as early as next year,” via a “reverse enlargement” in which Ukraine would be declared a member “before completing all the necessary procedures and reforms,” because only full membership would trigger the EU’s mutual‑defense clause as a security guarantee. But in Brussels this is seen as “unrealistic”: Ukraine is “too far from EU standards and simply too large,” and accelerated entry “would cast doubt on the credibility of the entire enlargement policy.” SWP experts warn that such a move would create “first‑ and second‑tier member states,” require “sweeping institutional reforms,” and risk importing into the Union a state whose reform process is already “fragile” and “stalling” in sensitive anti‑corruption and governance areas. The authors conclude that while Ukraine “undoubtedly deserves special attention,” reverse enlargement “genuinely risks becoming a trap for Brussels,” and that significant progress toward EU standards must remain a condition, not a retrospective hope.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

Endnotes

  1. For one analytical take on Zaluzhnyi’s address at the Defence24Days conference, see “General Zaluzhnyi on Ukraine's Strategy of Survival, Transformation of War and Smart Mobilization Concept,” Giorgi Revishvili, Substack, 05.07.26. (Behind pay wall)
  2. Kalashnikov also said, in what appeared to be separate remarks: “Something very ominous, very dangerous is brewing. A very dangerous systemic crisis is ripening inside the Russian Federation. It feels as though our beau monde, our authorities, are not fighting the ‘Banderites’ but primarily their own population. If a new mobilization of reservists is announced now, against the backdrop of everything that is happening in the country, it will not stabilize the situation—it will finally blow it up inside the Russian Federation.”

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

AI was used in production of this digest.

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

Slider photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a screen while delivering a speech during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Saturday, May 9, 2026, during celebrations of the 81st anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany during the World War II. (Shamil Zhumatov/Pool Photo via AP)

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