5 Things to Know

1. Trump said on Jan. 9 that a meeting between him and Putin is being set up, raising the prospect that the incoming U.S. leader could push to start negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported. Trump’s remarks prompted a spokesman for Putin to declare that the Russian leader would “welcome” any approach from the U.S. president-elect and was prepared for “dialogue,” according to FT. Predictably, Trump and Kellogg, his envoy for the Ukraine conflict, have backtracked on the U.S. president-elect’s campaign promise to resolve the conflict in a day. Trump said on Jan. 7 that he hopes the conflict can be settled within six months, while Kellogg—who is to visit Kyiv and is open to visiting Moscow—now thinks the war can be ended in less than four months. It remains to be seen whether in the next 4–6 months, Russia’s and Ukraine’s differences over how their conflict should be resolved can be reconciled. At the moment Zelenskyy and Putin remain at loggerheads on such issues as Ukraine’s membership in NATO, European peacekeepers in Ukraine, the demilitarization of Ukraine and recognition of Russia’s annexations of Ukrainian territory. Moreover, the first of these issues, Ukraine’s membership in NATO, requires consent from all members of the alliance, which is extremely difficult to imagine in the foreseeable future. In addition, the Russian leadership has already rejected some key elements of a hypothetical peace deal proposed by Trump’s aides and his Western European counterparts. Among the rejected elements were an immediate unconditional ceasefire, a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine and the deferral of Ukraine’s membership in NATO for 20 years. Given all this, negotiations on “Trump’s peace plan” would not lead to a quick ceasefire, but they could continue throughout 2025 amid the fighting, according to prominent Russian expert on Kremlin’s foreign policy, Frolov. Moreover, if a meeting between Trump and Putin happens too early, when “the conditions for peace have not yet matured, “it could lead to greater escalation,” claimed Bovt, another prominent Russian political analyst. Still, negotiations with Putin are worth a shot this year, though Trump’s team should expect a success in less than a year, according to RAND’s Charap. 
2. If one were to look at what lies under the surface of Putin’s negotiating position on the Ukraine conflict, one would discover that the Russian leader’s main goal in any talks would be to create new security agreements that would not only ensure that Ukraine never joins NATO, but also that the U.S.-led military alliance pulls back from some of its eastern deployments. This follows from a senior Kremlin official’s interview to FT. “Trump wants to roll back NATO anyway. The world is changing, anything can happen,” the official claimed. While Trump has not recently stated any intention to “roll back NATO,” his rhetoric this week indicates Putin may still find a sympathetic listener in the U.S. president elect when it comes to some of his grievances regarding NATO. “A big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin, you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine. Now they've said that—that's been like written in stone. And somewhere along the line Biden said no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep and I could understand their feeling about that,” Trump told a Jan. 7 conference this week, according to RollCall.
3. Russian armed forces captured 148 square miles—the equivalent of 6 1/2 Manhattan islands—in the past month, according to the Jan. 8, 2025 issue of RM’s Russia-Ukraine War Report Card that analyzes data provided by ISW. As of Jan. 9, some 18.54% (43,210 square miles or 111,913 square kilometers) of Ukraine’s territory was under Russian occupation, according to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group’s interactive map. In the meantime, this week Ukrainian armed forces retained control of some 40% of the 470 square miles they occupied during an incursion in Russia’s Kursk region in August–September 2024. Preservation of that salient in that western region of Russia by Ukraine is critical to any future negotiations, according to Blinken.
4. In an effort to shape the public’s views of the Biden team’s legacy, Blinken and Sullivan have offered their takes on their handling of some of the key challenges of the past four years, including the nuclear risks associated with Russia’s war against Ukraine. When commenting on that conflict, both confirmed U.S. government assessments that Putin considered using nuclear weapons when his forces were being beaten back in the east and south of Ukraine in the second half of 2022. “Even if the probability went from 5 to 15% [at the time], when it comes to nuclear weapons, nothing is more serious,” Blinken told FT. To dissuade Putin from using nukes, the Biden administration, among other things, successfully reached out to Xi and Modi, Sullivan told WP. Blinken confirmed the success of the outreach: That Putin considered using nuclear weapons in the second half of 2022 has been previously reported.¹ What has not been reported, however, are the details of the outreach via Xi to Putin on the issue. Neither has it been reported that Sullivan invited Harvard’s Graham Allison in October 2022 to present an scenario of how Kennedy crafted an "outside the box" compromise that defused the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as the White House grappled with how to deal with Russia’s nuclear threat, according to WP.
5. U.S. Defense Secretary Austin announced a new $500 million package of military aid to Ukraine while attending his last meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Jan. 9. The package includes additional missiles for Ukrainian air defense, such as AIM-7, RIM-7, and AIM-9M missiles for air defense, as well as air-to-ground munitions and other equipment to support Ukraine's F-16s, according to Austin and White House. Meanwhile German Defense Minister Pistorius announced at the meeting that Berlin will provide Kyiv with an unspecified number of IRIS-T air defense missiles while the so-called drone coalition pledged to provide Ukraine with 30,000 drones. Neither of these munitions are designed to intercept ballistic missiles even though Ukraine’s record in shooting down such missiles is poor (of 321 ballistic missiles Russia launched since Sept. 2022, Ukraine intercepted 51, according to CSIS data cited in a RM score card).

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• On Jan. 4 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that “in battles today and yesterday near just one village — Makhnovka in the Kursk region — the Russian army lost up to a battalion of infantry, including North Korean soldiers and Russian paratroopers.” (NYT, 01.05.25)
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Jan. 6 the United States believed Russia was expanding space cooperation with North Korea in exchange for its contribution of troops to fight Ukraine. Blinken also said that the United States also believed that Russia "may be close" to formally accepting North Korea's status as a nuclear power. (MT/AFP, 01.06.25)
• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the nation’s new hypersonic missile will keep any rivals in the Pacific region in check, following a test launch on Jan. 6 that coincided with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Seoul. (Bloomberg, 01.06.25)

Iran and its nuclear program:

•  “The acceleration of [Iran’s] nuclear program is leading us very close to the breaking point,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during a speech to French ambassadors in Paris on Jan. 6. (Bloomberg, 01.06.25)
• A Japanese yakuza leader has pleaded guilty to trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar. U.S. authorities charged Takeshi Ebisawa with conspiring to traffic nuclear materials from Myanmar for expected use by Iran in nuclear weapons. (The Guardian/AFP, 01.08.25)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• There are at least 300,000 severely injured veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war in Russia, according to calculations by the independent Russian media outlets Mediazona and Meduza, as well as the BBC, which all use open source statistics to calculate the war’s toll of deaths and injuries. (NYT, 01.07.25)
• A Russian opposition investigative outlet reported that Russian authorities have turned a pretrial detention center (SIZO) in Taganrog, Voronezh Oblast into a torture center for Ukrainian prisoners of war and imprisoned Ukrainian civilians. (ISW, 01.09.25)
• For military strikes on civilian targets see the next section.

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

• In the past month, Russia gained 148 square miles—the equivalent of 6 1/2 Manhattan islands, according to the Jan. 8, 2025, issue of RM’s weekly Russia-Ukraine War Report Card that analyzes data provided by the Institute for the Study of War. According to that analysis, Ukraine currently controls 184 of the 470 square miles it occupied in Russia’s Kursk region as of mid-September 2024. (RM, 01.08.25)²
  • In 2024 as a whole, Russia captured under 1,621 square miles (4,200 square kilometers, roughly equivalent to the state of Rhode Island), the Institute for the Study of War reported, adding that over half of the gains had been made from September to November. (FT, 01.05.25)
  • As of Jan. 9, some 18.54% (43,211 square miles or 111,913 square kilometers) of Ukraine’s territory was under Russian occupation, according to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group’s interactive map, as well as according to a chart analysis based on DeepState’s data. (RM, 01.10.25)
• On the night of Jan. 3 to 4, Ukrainian forces struck a gas terminal at the Ust-Luga port in Leningrad Oblast. (ISW, 01.04.25)
  • Russian military journalist Nikolay Mitrokhin wrote in Republic.ru on Dec. 26 that the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to reduce the output of oil products in the Russian Federation by about 15% using drone strikes, but RM was, as of Jan. 7, 2025, unable to confirm this estimate. An investigation by the Novaya Gazeta – Evropa newspaper estimated in March 2024 that the Ukrainian strikes had rendered facilities which accounted for 1/6^th of the production of gasoline and diesel fuels in Russia, non-operational. (RM, 01.07.25)
• On Jan. 4, Zelenskyy said that in the first three days of the new year, Russia had deployed more than 300 drones and 20 missiles. (FT, 01.05.25)
• On Jan. 4, a Ukrainian Security Service official said the country’s drones attacked Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga. (Bloomberg, 01.06.25)
• On Jan. 5, Ukrainian forces claimed to have gone on the offensive in the Kursk region of Russia, where it had captured land in an incursion launched in August 2024. On the same day, the Russian MoD confirmed that Ukraine had launched a "counterattack" in that western region. Prominent Russian pro-war Telegram channels, such as RVvoenkor and Rybar, confirmed that Ukrainian forces launched assaults in the Kursk region on Jan. 5 and then on Jan. 6, but claimed that these attacks produced no gains. (NYT, 01.05.25, RM, 01.08.25, MT/AFP, 01.05.25)
  • The positions held by Ukraine’s forces in Russia’s Kursk region will play a critical role in future negotiations to end the war, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Seoul. (Meduza, 01.06.25)
• On Jan. 5, Russia’s defense ministry vowed unspecified “retaliatory measures” after Ukraine launched U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles at the border region of Belgorod. The ministry said that it had successfully downed eight of the tactical missiles as well as dozens of Ukrainian drones over the past day. On Jan. 5, Russia also claimed to have downed 61 Ukrainian drones overnight in a barrage in the southern Rostov region. (MT/AFP, 01.05.25, Bloomberg, 01.04.25)
• On Jan. 5, Russian forces were reported to be within one mile of a critical supply road leading to Pokrovsk, which had served as a vital logistics and transportation hub for Ukrainian forces in the region. Russian forces are trying to encircle Pokrovsk, a focal point of the war in recent months, from the south, hoping to avoid brutal and prolonged urban combat. (NYT, 01.06.24, NYT, 01.05.25)
• On Jan. 5, Ukrainian forces claimed to have gone on the offensive in the Kursk region of Russia where they captured land in an incursion that was launched in August 2024. On the same day, the Russian MoD confirmed that Ukraine had launched a "counterattack" in that western region. Prominent Russian pro-war Telegram channels, such as RVvoenkor and Rybar, confirmed that Ukrainian forces launched assaults in the Kursk region on Jan. 5 and then on Jan. 6, but claimed that these attacks produced no gains. As of this week, Ukraine controlled 184 of the 470 square miles it occupied in the Kursk region, the equivalent of 8 Manhattan islands, according to RM’s weekly Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. (NYT, 01.05.25, RM, MT/AFP, 01.05.25)
• On Jan. 6, Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group reported in its interactive map that Russian  forces occupied Lozova, Ivanivka and Shevchenko. (RM, 01.10.25)
• On Jan. 6, Russia claimed its forces had captured the "important logistics hub" of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk region. Russian units "have fully liberated the town of Kurakhove — the biggest settlement in southwestern Donbas," the Defense Ministry of Russia claimed. However, on Jan. 7, Kyiv's army said it was clinging on to part of Kurakhove. "Ukrainian troops are holding on in the western part of the town, on the western outskirts of the town," Victor Tregubov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Khortytsia army unit, which is fighting in the area, said. (MT/AFP, 01.06.25, MT/AFP, 01.07.25)
  • Moscow hailed the capture of the "important logistics hub," saying it would enable Russian forces to seize the rest of the eastern Donetsk region "at an accelerated pace." (MT/AFP, 01.07.25)
  • The fall of Kurakhove and surrounding towns could allow Russia to broaden its assault on the city of Pokrovsk, 21 miles to the north, military analysts said. (NYT, 01.06.25)
  • Kurakhove is home to one of the biggest power plants in the region, owned by DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company. In autumn 2024, DTEK transferred most of the plant’s key equipment to shore up damaged plants elsewhere. (FT, 01.07.25)
  • The loss of Kurakhove underscored problems with the way Ukraine is managing and deploying its forces, Ukrainian analysts and soldiers said. Under pressure to address those concerns, Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, has ordered a comprehensive review of the military command. (NYT, 01.06.25)
• On Jan. 6-7, Russian forces were reported to have recently advanced in northwestern Toretsk in the Donetsk region. (ISW, 01.07.25)
• On Jan. 8, Ukrainian forces struck a command post of the Russian 8th Combined Arms Army (CAA) in occupied Khartsyzk, Donetsk Oblast. (ISW, 01.08.25)
• On Jan. 8, Ukraine attacked the Kristall oil storage facility in Engels, around 300 miles from the border between the two countries. Kyiv said the depot supplied fuel to the Engels airfield, which it has said is a staging ground for Russia’s long-running attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and which hosts some of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers. (NYT, 01.08.25) Theoretically, Russia’s nuclear doctrine permits using nuclear weapons in response to attacks on any part of its strategic nuclear triad. However, Ukraine has staged multiple attacks on the bases of Russia’s long-range nuclear capable bombers without triggering a nuclear response by the Kremlin.
• At least two firefighters were killed battling a blaze that erupted in the southern Saratov region after the Ukrainian drone attacked the oil depot, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said. (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)
• On Jan. 8, a Russian missile attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed 13 people and injured 18, according to local authorities, including a 13-year-old girl. By Jan. 10 the number of people injured increased to 127 people, of whom 74 were hospitalized. (NYT, 01.09.25, WP, 01.09.25, FT, 01.09.25, Ukrainska Pravda, 01.10.25)
• On Jan. 9, Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group reported in its interactive map that Russian  forces occupied Petropavlivka, Vozdvizhenka, Solone, Novoivanivka, Leonidove and Oleksandriya. (RM, 01.10.25)
• On Jan. 9, a Ukrainian official said Russian forces have secured a bridgehead on the western bank of the Oskil River in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. The Oskil River serves as the de-facto front line in parts of the region, with Ukrainian troops entrenched on the western bank and Russian forces attempting to push across from the east. “The enemy is trying to gain a foothold in the town of Dvorichna, which is already on the right bank of the Oskil, and expand the entire bridgehead,” Andrii Besedin, an official in the city of Kupiansk, told state television. Besedin described the situation as “extremely difficult” and warned that Russian troops could use the bridgehead to outflank Ukrainian positions. (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)
• On Jan. 10, at least three people were killed and six others were wounded in Ukrainian strikes on Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, Russian-installed governor of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said. He said Ukraine struck a square in the region's main city of Donetsk with precision-guided long-range missiles fired by HIMARS rocket launchers. The strike on Shakhtarska Ploshcha killed two people and wounded two others, Russia's Investigative Committee told RIA Novosti, accusing Ukraine of deliberately firing on civilian infrastructure. Ukraine also directly hit a multi-story apartment block in the town of Svitlodarsk closer to the front line, killing a woman and wounding four residents, Pushilin said. However, the Defense Forces of Ukraine said Jan. 10 that they have struck the command post of the 3rd Army Corps of the Russian Armed Forces in Svitlodarsk. (MT/AFP, 01.10.25, RBC.ua, 01.10.25)
• On Jan. 10, a Ukrainian long-range Neptune missile was reported to have hit a miliary depot in the Rostov region after Ukrainian drones had overwhelmed Russian air defense. (Status-6 X-account, 01.10.25)
• Ukraine presented its military strategy for 2025 during the 25th session of the Rammstein format on Jan. 9. It is based on four key priorities, according to Defense Minister Rustem Umerov: stabilization of the front line; strengthening the defense capability of Ukraine; strengthening the protection of the sky and sea routes; asymmetric response to the aggressor's attempts to achieve an advantage through scale. (RBC.ua, 01.10.25)
• Journalists from the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona, together with a team of volunteers, have identified the names of 88,055 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion. This data was collected only from open sources and does not take into account the losses of the so-called LPR/DPR units. The most elite units — the Marines, Airborne Forces, GRU special forces and combat pilots of the Aerospace Forces — lost more than 6,000 people killed. In addition, Russia has lost 267 professional military pilots.  (Istories, 01.10.25)
• Ukrainian forces said they destroyed or damaged over 3,000 Russian tanks and almost 9,000 armored vehicles in 2024 as Russia continues to accrue vehicle losses that are likely unsustainable in the medium-term. (ISW, 01.04.25)
• Col. Vadym Sukharevsky, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, said his forces had about 2,000 drone specialists as of autumn and would have 10,000 by the end of 2025. (NYT, 01.05.25)
  • On Jan. 3, Ukrainian MP Denys Shmyhal stated that Ukraine plans to produce about 3,000 cruise missiles and "drone-missiles" and at least 30,000 long-range drones in 2025. Shmyhal stated that Ukraine's defense industrial base (DIB) will also increase production capacity to about $30 billion worth of goods and attract $1 billion in foreign investment in 2025. (ISW, 01.03.25)
  • ''I found that 90% of the Russian equipment that was destroyed by Ukraine was destroyed by drones,'' said Serhii Sternenko, a young Ukrainian lawyer, prominent YouTuber and impassioned drone advocate. (NYT, 01.05.25)
• As Russian forces have intensified their advances in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, they're being helped by a new tool on the battlefield: drones that fly with the use of fiber-optic cables. "The use of fiber-optic FPV drones definitely creates new challenges on the battlefield," said a border guard with the Pomsta Brigade who goes by the call sign "Phoenix." The use of fiber-optic cables allows drones to operate without radio signals. This makes them less vulnerable to electronic jamming as they stay directly connected to their operators through up to 15 kilometers of thin coils of fiber-optic cable that resembles a fishing line. (RFE/RL, 01.10.25, Meduza, 01.07.25) Both sides have reportedly begun to use drones controlled via fiber-optic cables, which some press reports described as “unjammable.”
• First Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Ivan Gavrilyuk stated that the bill on demobilization has been developed, but another three months are needed to work out the mechanisms for replacing a large number of people who will be subject to demobilization. (Ukrainska Pravda, 01.10.25)
  • CIA director William Burns said: “[Ukrainians] do face a huge manpower challenge. It's not a question of their courage or tenacity, which I don't doubt for a minute. But that manpower disadvantage is something that Putin's taking advantage of.” (NPR, 01.10.25)

Military aid to Ukraine: 

• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NYT: “If you look at the trajectory of the conflict, because we saw it coming, we were able to make sure that not only were we prepared and allies and partners were prepared, but that Ukraine was prepared. We made sure that well before the Russian aggression happened, starting in September and then again December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defend themselves, things like Stingers, Javelins that were instrumental in preventing Russia from taking Kyiv.” (NYT, 01.04.25)
• On Jan. 9, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a new $500 million package of military aid as part of the outgoing Biden administration's goal of sending as much support as possible before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office. The package includes "additional missiles for Ukrainian air defense, more ammunition, more air-to-ground munitions, and other equipment to support Ukraine's F-16s," Austin said. Austin spoke at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. (RFE/RL, 01.09.25)[3]
  • German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced that Germany will provide Ukraine with an unspecified number of IRIS-T air defense missiles. U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey and Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds jointly announced that the drone coalition, including the U.K., Latvia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, will provide Ukraine with 30,000 drones at an unspecified future time after the coalition signed contracts worth 45 million pounds ($55.4 million). (ISW, 01.09.25)
  • On Jan. 9, Zelenskyy made a plea to press on with support. “We’ve come such a long way that it would honestly be crazy to drop the ball now and not keep building on the defense coalitions we’ve created,” Zelenskyy said during a meeting of allied defense ministers at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Jan. 9. Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of providing Ukraine with more air defense systems and stated that Ukraine wants to supply Ukrainian forces with a record number of domestically produced and internationally procured drones in 2025. Zelenskyy said that the question of discontinuing the Ramstein format is not even on the table. "Everyone understands that the next meeting is in February," Zelenskyy said. (Korrespondent.net, 01.10.25, Bloomberg, 01.09.25, ISW, 01.09.25)
• European leaders and officials have been making the case to Trump and his team that continued U.S. military aid is needed to put Kyiv in a stronger position for peace talks and to help bring Moscow to the negotiating table, nearly three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. (FT, 01.09.25)
  • Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort last week, has ruled out that Washington would “abandon” Ukraine. (FT, 01.09.25)

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

• EU officials are analyzing hundreds of executive orders and sanctions imposed by U.S. President Joe Biden amid growing concern that Trump will rescind them, potentially upending foreign relations and trade. The EU’s biggest concern is that Trump reverses Biden’s multiple executive orders that imposed sanctions on Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022, the officials said. (FT, 01.10.25)
• Japan on Jan. 10 announced asset freezes for dozens of individuals and entities, as well as sweeping export bans, as part of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Tokyo’s asset freeze list expanded to 11 Russian executives and one North Korean, as well as 29 military-related groups, three Russian banks and one Georgian bank. (MT/AFP, 01.10.25)
• Finland's government said on Jan. 9 it plans to keep its border with Russia closed and extend a controversial law allowing border guards to turn away asylum seekers under certain circumstances. (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)
• Alex Isakov, a Russian economist said: “Moscow is still miles from making the yuan work as well as dollars and euros for its trade settlement, with costly inefficiencies in its exchange-rate market. Still, Russia’s experience shows that a large economy, if forced, can at least partially ditch the dollar and continue to function.” (Bloomberg, 01.08.25)
• For sanctions on the energy sector, please see section “Energy exports from CIS” below.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

• In November 2022, Gen. Mark A. Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned publicly that the stalemate that was emerging might be the best Ukraine could get - and that it was time for diplomacy. "When there's an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment," he said, amplifying remarks he had been making privately for weeks. (WP, 01.05.25.)
• On Jan. 2, Zelenskyy outlined the conditions that must be met to push Russia to agree to a "just peace." Zelenskyy stated that achieving a "just peace" requires a strong Ukrainian military, security guarantees from Western allies and Ukraine's future membership in NATO and the European Union (EU). Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine cannot achieve a just peace with a small military, such as "40,000 or 50,000 soldiers" – a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin's initial demand during the Istanbul peace talks in Spring 2022. (ISW, 01.03.25)
  • Zelenskyy, in a three-hour conversation with the podcaster Lex Fridman, said: “I think that President Trump not only has will, he has all these possibilities, and it’s not just talk,” he said. “I really count on him, and I think that our people really count on him, so he has enough power to pressure him, to pressure Putin.” Zelenskyy also reaffirmed his belief that there can be no lasting peace unless Ukraine is militarily strong and supported by the United States. “If we do not have security guarantees, Putin will come again,” he said. (NYT, 01.06.25)
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NYT: “It’s unlikely that Putin will give up on his ambitions. If there’s a cease-fire, then, in Putin’s mind, the cease-fire is likely to give him time to rest, to refit, to reattack at some point in the future. So what’s going to be critical to make sure that any cease-fire that comes about is actually enduring is to make sure that Ukraine has the capacity going forward to deter further aggression.” (NYT, 01.04.25)
  • “There is going to be, at some point, a cease-fire. It’s not going to be in Putin’s mind ‘game over,’” Blinken told reporters. “His imperial ambitions remain, and what he will seek to do is to rest, refit and eventually reattack.” Blinken also said that Ukraine’s campaign in Kursk would play a critical role in any peace talks. (NYT, 01.06.25)
• "I hope to have six months. No, I would think, I hope long before six months," Trump said Jan. 7, when asked if he could solve the war within half a year. (Reuters, 01.07.25)
  • “We're going to have to settle some big problems that are going on right now. We're going to have to settle up with Russia, Ukraine—that's a disaster. I look at numbers every week. The number of people being killed in that war, people don't know, mostly soldiers now, but the towns have been obliterated. This was a Biden fiasco that he got us—that should have never happened. If we had a real president—if we had a president that knew what he was doing, Russia would have never ever gone in. But they did go in and we have a mess. The cities are all blown up, the people have largely left, and the soldiers are killing each other at levels that haven't been seen since the Second World War. So, we'll have to get that one straightened out too. That's a tough one, much tougher than it would have been before it started, I can tell you that,” Trump told a Jan. 7 press conference. (RollCall, 01.07.25)
  • [When asked: Would you make a commitment to the Ukrainians that you will keep supporting them during the negotiations?] “Well, I wouldn't tell you if that were the case,” Trump told a Jan. 7 press conference. (RollCall, 01.07.25)
  • [When asked: How soon do you anticipate going to meet with Putin to discuss the Ukraine situation?] “Well, I can't tell you that, but I know that Putin would like to meet. I don't think it's appropriate that I meet until after the 20th, which I hate because every day people are being—many, many young people are being killed, soldiers. You know, the land is very flat and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers from each—many hundreds of thousands from each side are dead and they're laying in fields all over the place, nobody to even collect, there's landmines all over, it's a disaster,” Trump told a Jan. 7 press conference. (RollCall, 01.07.25)
• On Jan. 9, Trump said a meeting with Putin is being set up, raising the prospect that the incoming U.S. leader could push to start negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. At a meeting with Republican governors at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, the incoming president told a reporter that Putin “wants to meet” and added, “we’re gonna — we’re setting it up.” Any such meeting, were it to happen, would come after he’s inaugurated as president, Trump said. (Bloomberg, 01.10.25)
  • Putin would “welcome” any approach from Trump and was prepared for “dialogue” with the U.S., the Kremlin said on Jan. 9. (FT, 01.09.25)
  • Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Jan. 10 that there were “no specifics” yet regarding organizing a meeting, but Putin has repeatedly stated that he was open to talking with Trump. (Bloomberg, 01.10.25)
  • Sources in the Russian presidential administration, State Duma and wider Russian federal government and regional governments told Russian opposition media outlet Meduza that Russian elites are increasingly "disappointed" and "tired" of waiting for the war to end and are growing increasingly concerned about the long-term impact of Western sanctions on Russia's economy. Two sources close to the presidential administration noted that the Russian government currently lacks a clear vision for post-war Russia and that an end to the war could be "critical" for the presidential administration if the administration cannot identify a clear narrative and political framework for Russian society after the war. (ISW, 01.09.25)
• Two European officials told the FT that discussions with Trump’s incoming team in recent weeks revealed they had not yet decided on how to solve the conflict, and that support to Ukraine would continue after the U.S. president’s inauguration on Jan. 20. “The whole [Trump] team is obsessed with strength and looking strong, so they’re recalibrating the Ukraine approach,” said one of the officials. (FT, 01.09.25)
• CIA director William Burns said: “[T]he issue [in 2025], I think, is going to be how do you help President Zelenskyy and Ukraine sustain enough leverage to ensure that those negotiations are not just on Putin's terms? And how do you continue to inflict costs on Russia so that Putin understands that time is not necessarily on his side, which is what I think he believes today.” (NPR, 01.10.25)
• Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Ukraine conflict envoy, told Fox News on Jan. 8: "This is a war that needs to end, and I think he can do it in the near term.” Kellogg defined the "near term" as 100 days out from Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. (Kyiv Post, 01.08.25) So by May 1, 2025.
  • Kellogg has postponed a fact-finding trip to Kyiv and other European capitals until after Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, according to four sources with knowledge of the trip's planning. He had initially planned a mission to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian leaders in early January. Kellogg is now expected to travel to Ukraine after Trump takes office, though no date has been set, the sources said. (Reuters, 01.07.25)
• “There’s a thought that Russia has the ultimate hand here and it has every advantage,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “It has some advantages, but it doesn’t completely dominate this equation here. And if it gets what it wants, it will cost them in the future.” That consideration should figure in any push for a ceasefire that the incoming administration of Donald Trump might undertake, Austin said. (Bloomberg, 01.08.25)
• “Security guarantees are fundamental if we actually aspire to have peace in Ukraine,” Meloni said. “We all know that in the past Russia has violated the agreements that it has signed. Without security guarantees, we cannot have certainty that will not happen again.” (FT, 01.09.25)
• Keir Starmer will travel to Ukraine in the coming weeks to discuss the possibility of deploying an international peacekeeping force there after the conflict with Russia has ended, his first visit to the war-torn nation since becoming U.K. prime minister half a year ago. (Bloomberg, 01.10.25)
  • On Jan. 9, Zelenskyy said he supports the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine as one of the "best instruments" to "force Russia to peace." (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)
• Putin’s main goal in any talks was to create new security agreements that would ensure Ukraine never joins Nato and that the U.S.-led military alliance pulls back from some of its eastern deployments, according to a former senior Kremlin official and another person who has discussed this with the Russian president. “He wants to change the rules of the international order so there are no threats to Russia. He is very worried about how the world will look after the war,” the former senior Kremlin official said. “Trump wants to roll back Nato anyway. The world is changing, anything can happen.” (FT, 01.09.25)

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

• “So, you know, a big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin, said, you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine. Now they've said that—that's been like written in stone. And somewhere along the line Biden said no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep and I could understand their feeling about that. But there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation. And when I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said you're going to end up in a war and it turned out to be a very bad war. And it could escalate—that war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now,” Trump told a Jan. 7 press conference. (RollCall, 01.07.25)
  • “And because of that [botched withdrawal from Afghanistan], I think Russia went and attacked Ukraine. When they saw that they said these guys are incompetent, they don't know what they're doing. But we know what we're doing now and that's going to all end, and we have a great military. I defeated ISIS, as you know, we were in no wars. I just finished a couple, and we got also our soldiers guarding Syria and Turkey were in the middle,” Trump told a Jan. 7 press conference. (RollCall, 01.07.25)
  • Trump refused to rule out the use of military or economic coercion to force Panama to give up control of the canal that America built more than a century ago and to push Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States. In December, when Trump ramped up his calls for the purchase of Greenland and voiced his complaints about how American shipping was treated as it traversed the Panama Canal, Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group noted that the case Trump was making had echoes of the justifications Putin made for invading Ukraine. (NYT, 01.07.25)
    • Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the opinion of Greenland’s population must be considered in the matter of Trump’s claims to the island, just as the views of residents in Russia’s “new regions” were taken into account. Peskov noted that Russia is “closely monitoring” what he described as the “rather dramatic developments” around Greenland but emphasized that this is “primarily a matter of bilateral relations between the U.S., Denmark and other countries.” (Meduza, 01.09.25)
• NATO won't heed Trump’s proposal for a massive hike in defense spending but will likely agree to go beyond its current target, according to officials and analysts. The U.S. president-elect declared on Jan. 7 members of the military alliance should spend 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense – a huge increase from the current 2% goal and a level that no NATO country, including the United States, currently reaches. (Reuters, 01.10.15)
• Far from saving money on U.S. weapons that are being provided to Ukraine, a Russian victory in the war would require a surge in Pentagon spending of more than $800 billion through 2029, a conservative think tank argues in a new report by the American Enterprise Institute. The $808 billion increase, according to the report, would be required for the U.S. to help deter, and if necessary defeat, a non-nuclear Russian attack beyond Ukraine. That amount would alter the Defense Department’s current five-year plan through 2029 to $5.2 trillion from $4.4 trillion, or about $165 billion more annually than planned for those years. That plan focuses heavily on Asia. (Bloomberg, 01.09.25)
• Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency paid tens of millions of dollars to militant groups in Afghanistan to target U.S., allied and Afghan military forces in the years leading up to the U.S. withdrawal from the country, according to a report by The Insider investigative outlet and Der Spiegel. The Insider’s findings corroborate a 2020 report by The New York Times, citing U.S. officials, that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan. (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)
• By the end of the week, NATO will deploy “about 10” ships to guard underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, according to Yle, Finland's national public broadcaster. Finnish and Estonian ships will be primarily responsible for patrols, while vessels from other NATO members will be stationed near energy and communication cables. The deployment fulfills a promise by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Dec. 27 to “enhance [NATO’s] military presence in the Baltic Sea.” (Meduza, 01.08.25)
  • The Swedish navy said Jan. 7 it had recovered from the Baltic Sea the anchor of an oil tanker suspected of belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet" and damaging four underwater telecoms cables and one power cable on Dec. 25. Sweden sent a submarine rescue vessel to assist Finland in the investigation last week. (MT/AFP, 01.07.25)
  • Finland says a tanker alleged to be part of Russia's “shadow fleet” that was detained over the damaging of Baltic Sea cables has "serious deficiencies," putting it under detention amid reports NATO is due to begin patrolling near key underwater cables. (RFE/RL, 01.08.25)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Nicholas Burns, the top U.S. diplomat in Beijing, says the Biden administration is making a final push to urge China to reconsider its tilt toward Russia, Iran and North Korea. Burns, in an interview at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, asserted that nearly 400 Chinese companies have supplied Russia with so-called dual use products, those with both military and commercial applications. He also said China has supplied 90% of the microelectronics used in the Russian war effort. (NYT, 01.10.25)
• Chinese President Xi Jinping will send a high-ranking envoy to represent the country at the inauguration ceremony of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the FT reported. (TASS, 01.09.25)
• Putin said he would be talking with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping by phone soon. (Bloomberg, 01.09.25)
• Putin on Jan. 7 expressed his "sincerest condolences" to Xi over a devastating earthquake in Tibet that killed at least 95 people. (MT/AFP, 01.07.25)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

• “Six months after [U.S. withdrawal from] Afghanistan, Russia invaded Ukraine. That was February 2022. I remember that moment as being terrifying. How close were we to direct conflict? Look, there’ve been different moments where we had real concerns about actions that Russia might take, including even potentially the use of nuclear weapons. That very much focused the mind,” Blinken said. “But I think throughout we’ve been able to navigate this in a way that has kept us away from direct conflict with Russia.” (NYT, 01.04.25)
• Blinken said the U.S. was “very concerned” because Putin seemed to be at least considering the nuclear option. “Even if the probability went from 5 to 15%, when it comes to nuclear weapons, nothing is more serious.” But nuclear weapons were also one of the few issues where China may have helped the U.S., despite Beijing’s support for Russia. “We have reason to believe that China engaged Russia and said: ‘Don’t go there,’" he says. He adds that a similar dynamic may have occurred when the U.S. told China that Putin was planning to put a nuclear weapon in space. (FT, 01.03.25)
• Months after invading Ukraine in Feb. 2022, Russian forces began a retreat that accelerated through that year. As the Kremlin panicked, it considered desperate options. U.S. intelligence analysts began warning that June that, as Russian lines collapsed, Moscow was preparing possible use of tactical nuclear weapons to save its forces. (WP, 12.31.24)
  • Jake Sullivan then invited Graham Allison, the leading scholar of the Cuban missile crisis, to visit the White House on Oct. 6, 2022. Allison presented an 11-page scenario of how Kennedy escaped the wooden recommendations of his advisers to craft an "outside the box" compromise that defused that 1962 confrontation. Kennedy's breakthrough was a "cockamamie cocktail," Allison believed. The White House crafted a formula that mixed public rejection of Russian missiles in Cuba with a private agreement not to invade the island—as well as a secret sweetener of promising to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey. Sullivan's takeaway was that "you need a multifaceted response in a crisis. If you have just one strand, it's fragile. You need multiple paths." (WP, 12.31.24)
  • The Ukraine crisis deepened on Oct. 23, 2022, when then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made an urgent call to his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin. Shoigu claimed that Russia had intelligence that Ukraine was preparing to use a "dirty bomb." Maybe his call was a pretext, or maybe Putin really believed the Ukrainians were about to go nuclear. U.S. intelligence analysts warned that it was a "coin flip" whether Russia would use tactical nukes to avert defeat. In response Sullivan pursued three channels to deter Moscow. (WP, 12.31.24)
    1. To buy time, he asked Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to visit Ukraine to investigate Russia's allegations. 
    2. To warn Putin emphatically of the risks, Sullivan had already stated publicly that Russia would face "catastrophic consequences" if it used nuclear weapons.
    • And third, the White House reached out to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Burns shared U.S. intelligence documenting Russia's "active consideration" of using tactical nuclear weapons with the head of China's Ministry of State Security, a senior official said. Xi took the United States' secret warnings seriously and sent a message to Putin and warned him against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, three knowledgeable sources said. Xi made his warning public several weeks later when he met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Nov. 4, 2022, in Beijing. (WP, 12.31.24)
      • Biden had also asked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press Putin, which he did at a summit in Uzbekistan that September. (WP,
• CIA director William Burns said, when asked whether the U.S. held back too much in an effort not to antagonize Russia in terms of weapons it supplied to Kyiv and limits on what Ukraine could do with them: “I don't think so. I mean, I think there were some very careful choices that the president made over the course of this [war] that enabled the Ukrainians not just to hold the line, but also to make some significant advances against the Russians, especially in 2022.” (NPR, 01.10.25) In this interview with NPR, Burns did not refer explicitly to the risk that Putin might have resorted to nuclear weapons as Ukranian forces successfully counterattacked in the second half of 2022, retaking parts of eastern and southern Ukraine. However, he did refer to this risk during his remarks at a September 2024 event. “There was a moment in the fall of 2022 when I think there was a genuine risk of the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons,” Burns said at the event.
• Russian space weapons might pose the most dangerous problem ahead—and it's one the public barely understands. Early last year, the U.S. intelligence community advised Sullivan that Russia had launched a satellite—dubbed Sputnik-S—that was configured to potentially carry a nuclear weapon. U.S. analysts feared that if a future satellite ever detonated a bomb, the radiation field would disable any satellite in low Earth orbit that wasn't shielded. Sullivan reached out to Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov, a Russian official who had been a back-channel contact throughout the war in Ukraine. Sullivan gave Ushakov a stark warning about the satellite weapon. He told the Russian adviser that it would be U.S. policy to "deny the strategic effect of the weapon," a senior administration official said. (WP, 01.05.25)

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• On Jan. 3, Ukraine's Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that several Russian ships would arrive at the Port of Tartus in Syria to evacuate Russian military assets to Libya. The GUR reported on Jan. 3 that the Ivan Gren-class large landing ship, the Alexander Otrakovsky Ropucha-class landing ship, and the Sparta cargo ship are scheduled to arrive at Tartus on Jan. 5, while the Sparta II cargo ship and the Ivan Skobelev tanker are scheduled to arrive on Jan. 8 to transfer Russian military assets to an unspecified location in Libya. At least one Russian ship had to moor off the coast of Syria, apparently unable to access the Russian facility in the Port of Tartus, according to pro-ware Russian telegram channel “Rybar.” Rybar speculated that the new Syrian authorities may have disallowed the ship from docking at Tartus. (ISW, 01.03.25, RM, 01.09.25) 
• Iranian Brig. Gen. Behrouz Esbati—who has been Iran’s top ranking general in Syria—said: “I don’t consider losing Syria something to be proud of. We were defeated, and defeated very badly, we took a very big blow and it’s been very difficult.” The general also accused Russia, considered a top ally, of misleading Iran by telling it that Russian jets were bombing Syrian rebels when they were actually dropping bombs on open fields. He also said that in the past year, as Israel struck Iranian targets in Syria, Russia had “turned off radars,” in effect facilitating these attacks. (NYT, 01.08.25)
• The Biden administration has decided to maintain the terrorist designation of Syria's new Islamist rulers for the remainder of Biden's tenure, leaving a critical decision about Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to the incoming Trump administration, said three U.S. officials familiar with the matter. (WP, 01.09.25)
  • The Biden administration is offering limited sanctions relief to Syria to boost the flow of humanitarian aid after the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad. The Treasury Department said in a statement Jan. 6 that it’s authorizing such transactions for six months. (Bloomberg, 01.06.25)

Cyber security/AI: 

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

• The Biden administration on Jan. 10 issued sweeping sanctions targeting the Russian energy sector, taking final aim at Moscow’s oil revenues just days before Trump takes office. The measures include sanctions on Russian oil producers Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, and the blacklisting of 183 vessels involved in Russian energy exports. Dozens of traders, Russia-based oilfield service providers, and energy officials were also targeted, according to a notice posted by the U.S. Treasury. The steps will cost Russia billions of dollars a month in revenues of its most important exports, a senior administration official said. (FT, 01.10.25, WSJ, 01.10.25)
• Russia’s own data show its crude production in December fell below its OPEC+ target, according to people familiar with figures from the country’s Energy Ministry. The nation pumped 8.971 million barrels a day of crude last month, the people said on condition of anonymity because figures aren’t public. That’s 7,000 barrels a day below Moscow’s pledge for December. (Bloomberg, 01.07.25)
• Stopping oil transit via the Druzhba pipeline would be a violation of Ukraine's Energy Charter Treaty and Association Agreement with the European Union. This was stated by Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal during "government question hour" in the Verkhovna Rada on Friday, Jan. 10. (Korrespondent.net, 01.10.25)
• The boss of the world’s largest publicly listed oil tanker operator has accused the U.N. maritime rule-setting body of “sleeping behind the wheel” over the growing dark fleet of unregulated vessels, saying it is “only a question of time” before a significant disaster takes place. Lars Barstad, chief executive of Frontline, also criticized European governments for failing to enforce rules meant to curtail trading in Russian oil, saying they were worried about forcing up energy prices. (FT, 01.05.25)
• Europe imported record amounts of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2024, The Guardian reported Jan. 9, citing data from energy analysts. European ports received 17.8 million tons of LNG from Russia in 2024, over 2 million tons more than in 2023, the newspaper reported, citing data from Rystad Energy. In terms of volume, Europe imported 49.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas through pipelines and 24.2 bcm in LNG, said Jan-Eric Fähnrich, a gas analyst at Rystad Energy. Fähnrich noted that some of these imports were resold to other countries. (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)
• The Moldovan government on Jan. 6 said it would provide natural gas to 14 localities in the Moscow-backed Transdniester breakaway region as residents there suffer through the brutal winter after Russian supplies were cut off on New Year's Day. Transnistria—internationally recognized as part of Moldova but de facto ruled by a pro-Russian separatist government since a short war in 1992—has for years enjoyed virtually free Russian gas, piped to it via Ukraine. Moldovan authorities also announced the summoning of a Russian diplomat following accusations over the worsening situation in its breakaway Transnistria region. (MT/AFP, 01.06.25, RFE/RL, 01.06.25, FT, 01.08.25)
• Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said Russia will if necessary deliver gas to cover the country’s domestic consumption this year, even as he seeks to restore fuel flows via Ukraine. Russia is expected to fulfill its gas supply obligations this year, Fico told lawmakers in parliament on Jan. 10. Fico said he wasn’t ruling out a resumption of gas shipments through Ukraine. Fico has also threatened to cut off electricity supplies to Ukraine if Kyiv does not restore a transit contract that delivered Russian gas to Bratislava. (FT, 01.10.25, Bloomberg, 01.10.25, Bloomberg, 01.09.25)

Climate change:

• The world breached 1.5C of warming above the average of the pre-industrial age last year for the first time, as an “extraordinary” spike in temperature suggested climate change is accelerating faster than expected. (FT, 01.10.25)

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• A delicate moment came in June 2023. U.S. intelligence learned that Putin ally Yevgeniy Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group militia, was planning to march on Moscow to challenge Putin's management of the war. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his colleagues decided that the risk of failure in meddling in Russian politics was too high—and that a successful Prigozhin might be even worse than Putin. "If Putin thought we were using Prigozhin to undermine his regime, who knows the nuclear risk?" recalled Tom Wright, one of Sullivan's top NSC advisers. (WP, 01.05.25)

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• The Russian central bank is forecasting a sharp decline in growth in 2025 to as low as 0.5%, down from an estimated 3.5%–4% last year, and sees inflation returning to its 4% target only in 2026. The Economy Ministry’s outlook is more rosy at 2.5% growth this year. (Bloomberg, 01.09.25)
• Russia's IT sector expanded by an impressive 63.2% year-on-year in the first six months of 2024, reaching 1.7 trillion rubles ($16.4 billion), according to data from the Higher School of Economics. (MT/AFP, 01.06.25)
• Shipping volumes along Russia’s Northern Sea Route reached a record 37.9 million tons in 2024, the state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced Jan. 9, though that figure still lagged far behind earlier targets. (MT/AFP, 01.10.25)
• Arkady Volozh, Russia’s most prominent technology entrepreneur, who is now living in exile, issued a  statement in August 2023, condemning Russia’s actions in the Ukraine war as “barbaric.” Putin responded a month later in a televised address, calling Volozh a “talented” businessman and wishing him “good health.” The president had used the same language to describe Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary leader who died in a plane crash in 2023 under suspicious circumstances. “Not so comfortable,” the founder of Yandex says about the comment. “I try not to think about it.” But soon after, he hired a security detail for the first time. (Bloomberg, 01.10.25)

Defense and aerospace:

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

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• Putin on Jan. 9 criticized Russian officials for their slow response to what he described as the country’s most serious environmental disaster in recent memory. “This is practically one of the most serious environmental challenges we’ve faced in recent years,” Putin said. The oil spill began on Dec. 15, when two aging tankers carrying 9,200 metric tons of heavy fuel oil were damaged by a storm in the Black Sea. (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)

• In 2024, more than 80,000 foreigners and stateless persons were expelled from Russia for violating migration rules. TASS adds that 44,200 foreigners were expelled from Russia in 2023, and 26,600 people in 2022. The agency does not specify where exactly this information was obtained. (Media Zone, 01.08.25)

   

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• Indonesia has become the newest member of the BRICS group of developing nations, in a move that could further bolster the Global South as Trump’s trade policies pose risks to the world economy. Brazil, the president of the bloc this year, announced the formal entry of Indonesia into BRICS as a full member on Jan. 6, according to a statement by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Bloomberg, 01.07.25)
• Romania’s pro-Putin far-right candidate remains voters’ first choice in a presidential election rerun in May despite allegations of Russia aiding his bid, according to an opinion poll. More than 40% of respondents surveyed by Verifield in late December said they would back Călin Georgescu for the presidency. (FT, 01.09.25)
  • Romanians took to the streets Jan. 10 in support of Georgescu, demanding the country’s top court reverse its decision to cancel a presidential ballot in which he was a frontrunner. (Bloomberg, 01.10.25)
• The European Union Aviation Safety Agency warned airlines to steer clear of several cities in Russia following the fatal crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet that was likely shot down by Russian forces. (Bloomberg, 01.09.25)
• Russia boosted exports of grain and its processed products 4% year-on-year to 83.5 million tons in 2024, the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) said, citing data from the Argus-Fito federal state information system on Dec. 15, 2024. (Interfax, 01.09.25)
• Russia has climbed up the ranking of countries whose citizens enjoy the most freedom of travel abroad after initially sliding amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a rating of passport “strength” in 2025. Russia and Turkey tied for 46th with visa-free access to 116 out of 227 country destinations worldwide, according to the Henley & Partners residence and citizenship planning firm. (MT/AFP, 01.09.25)
• Mexican authorities say there has been a sharp rise in irregular migration from Russia, with reports highlighting a 64% year-on-year increase in Russian migrants in 2024. (MT/AFP, 01.10.25)

Ukraine:

• Zelenskyy has already decided to run for a second presidential term. This is reported by the Ukrainian publication Telegraf, citing sources close to the head of state. Telegraf names former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.K. Valerii Zaluzhnyi as Zelenskyy’s main competitor. The publication claims that the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, told Zaluzhnyi that if he does not nominate and participate in the elections on Zelenskyy’s side, the former commander-in-chief will be able to get the first place on the Servant of the People party list and the seat of speaker in the Verkhovna Rada. (Meduza, 01.08.25)
  • On Jan. 2, Zelenskyy reiterated that the Ukrainian constitution and Ukrainian law prohibit Ukraine from holding presidential and parliamentary elections during periods of martial law. (ISW, 01.03.25)
• In Ukraine, metallurgical production increased by 22% in a year. Also in 2024, domestic enterprises of the metallurgical industry produced 7.58 million tons of steel, exceeding the 2023 figure by 21.6%. This was reported by Ukrmetallurgprom. (Korrespondent.net, 01.10.25)
• Ukrainian opposition parliamentarians said Jan. 10 they were initiating a procedure to oust Energy Minister German Galushchenko, citing corruption allegations, though it is unlikely to succeed in the near term. Galushchenko has overseen Ukraine's energy sector since April 2021, nearly a year before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in Feb. 2022. He is responsible for the power grid and other key infrastructure often targeted by Russia's military. There was no immediate comment from the minister… he has previously denied all corruption allegations. (Reuters, 01.10.25)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Zelenskyy said that at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko apologized for missile strikes launched from Belarusian territory in 2022. In an interview with U.S. podcaster Lex Fridman, published Jan. 5, Zelenskyy said the two leaders spoke by phone just days after Russia’s Feb. 2022 invasion. (Meduza, 01.06.25)
• On Jan. 6, Azerbaijan's president Aliyev said that Russia was "guilty" over the downing of an airline last month that Baku says was shot by Russian air defenses. He excoriated Russia for trying to duck responsibility in the downing. ''We demand justice, we demand the punishment of the guilty, we demand complete transparency and decent behavior, he said. (MT/AFP, 01.06.25, NYT, 01.07.25)
  • Farid Shafiyev, the chairman of the government-funded Center for Analysis of International Relations in Baku, Azerbaijan, said in a phone interview that Russia's ''imperial arrogance'' was on display in its obfuscation of the circumstances of the crash. (NYT, 01.07.25)
• Armenia’s government backed beginning the process for accession into the European Union, a move that could anger its traditional ally, Russia. The government in Yerevan approved a bill that would announce the start of applying to the 27-nation bloc during a meeting on Jan. 9. (Bloomberg, 01.09.25)

IV. Quotable and notable

• No significant developments.

Footnotes

1. NYT reported last March that  “under a singular scenario in which Ukrainian forces decimated Russian defensive lines and looked as if they might try to retake Crimea — a possibility that seemed imaginable that fall — the likelihood of nuclear use might rise to 50 percent or even higher.” Additionally, Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward wrote in his 2024 book that at one point in Fall 2022, Biden’s national security team believed there was a 50% chance that Putin would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. That was a striking assessment that had skyrocketed up from 5% and then 10%, Woodward was quoted in August 2024 as writing in his book.
2. For FT’s latest update of Ukraine’s battle against Russia in maps and charts, click here.
3. For a look back at how the U.S. worked to undermine Russia in the latter’s war against Ukraine and build up regional allies as it built a coalition to support the Ukrainians, see this story: “U.S. Saw an Opportunity While It Pushed to Arm Ukraine,” John Ismay, NYT, 01.09.25.

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 11:00 am East Coast time on the day it was distributed.

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

Slider photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza, DOD.