5 Ideas to Explore

1. For Ukraine, the “fight against Russia and the fight against corruption are two fronts of the same war,” argues Columbia University’s Matthew H. Murray in a piece for the Atlantic Council. Looking back at the July 2025 protests in Ukraine sparked by Kyiv’s attempt to strip Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies of their independence, Murray writes that the protests “were driven by a more fundamental desire to safeguard the country’s anti-corruption institutions against efforts to turn back the clock and undo the progress achieved since the Revolution of Dignity.” “Ukrainian society’s lack of tolerance for corruption is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the defense sector, where the stakes could not be higher,” Murray observes. “As Ukraine fights for its very existence, citizens and soldiers alike have demonstrated zero patience for anyone accused of exploiting the war for private gain.” Not only is meaningful reform aimed at curbing corruption a key pillar of Ukraine’s aspiration to join the EU, but as Paul Hockenos argues in Foreign Policy, the advancement of loyalists at the expense of competent advisors is a form of corruption that leads to non-sensical domestic and foreign policies, and threatens to undo Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hard-earned legitimacy with Ukraine’s people. Earlier in September, another wave of protests was sparked in Kyiv by Zelenskyy’s recent proposals for military reforms, “with critics saying the measures were poorly communicated and suggest his advisory circle is out of touch with society,” Hockenos reports.
2. On Sept. 22, Vladimir Putin said that Russia is ready to continue limiting its number of deployed nuclear warheads and launchers per the New START treaty for one more year, if the U.S. does the same. “Speaking at a meeting with members of the security council in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin said that Russia wanted to ‘avoid provoking a further strategic arms race,’” The New York Times reports. The New START treaty was renewed in January 2021 for a period of five years; however, Russia then suspended its participation in the treaty in 2023, a move the U.S. deemed illegal. In his Sept. 22 remarks, Putin also “ordered close monitoring of American plans to expand the U.S. missile defense system and of U.S. preparations for the deployment of interceptors in space,” saying that Russia  “will proceed from the understanding that the practical implementation of such destabilizing actions could undermine our efforts to maintain the status quo in the strategic offensive arms sphere,” NYT quotes Putin as saying.
3. While Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began under Joe Biden’s watch in February 2022, the time to blame Biden or Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the war has clearly passed, according to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. Friedman argues that for all Donald Trump’s denials on Truth Social, “Sorry, Mr. President. This is YOUR war now. Because you and you alone have the ability to deliver to Ukraine the military resources to send the message to Putin that time is not on his side.” Friedman’s view is echoed by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in The Wall Street Journal. As Jenkins writes, “yes, the war began under Mr. Biden. No, this fact can't be used to immunize a Trump presidency from the very large consequences of a Western failure in Ukraine.”
4. As Moldova prepares for elections on Sept. 28, “Russia is engaged in a multi-vector war” in the former Soviet-bloc country, writes Laura Thornton for Foreign Policy. “The phrase ‘influence operations’ is utterly inaccurate to describe what is happening in Moldova,” Thornton writes. According to Thornton, Russia “aims not only to thwart Moldova’s trajectory toward European Union membership… and bring it into Russia’s sphere of influence, but also to use the country as a geographically well-situated base to conduct hybrid attacks within the EU and operations in Ukraine.” Although one U.S. representative reportedly said the U.S. had “no dog in this fight,” Thornton argues the opposite: not only is Moldova “a laboratory for testing Russian war tactics,” but it is also “a Trojan horse through which Russia can infiltrate the EU.”
5. Why can’t Vladimir Putin afford to stop Russia’s assault on Ukraine? Because Russians can’t have a successful economy nearby for comparison, according to an analysis by Michael Tory in The Wall Street Journal. “Since 1990, the former Russian satellites that have joined the European Union have generated an almost 10-fold average increase in national GDP. By contrast, the national GDP of Russia itself and the non-EU countries on its western border have grown by just a factor of four over that same period,” Tory notes. Put more starkly, Tory observes that “in 1990, the Russian Federation's GDP was twice the combined GDP of the new EU countries ($500 billion versus about $250 billion). Today the combined GDP of the new EU countries is $2.4 trillion compared with $2.2 trillion for Russia, a gap in prosperity that grows wider with each passing year.” 

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:

• No significant developments.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• No significant developments.
• For military strikes on civilian targets see the next section.

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

"Putin Decides He Can Step Up Attacks on Kyiv and Trump Won’t Act," Bloomberg News, 09.20.25.

• “President Vladimir Putin has concluded that military escalation is the best way to force Ukraine into talks on his terms and that Donald Trump is unlikely to do much to bolster Kyiv’s defenses, according to people close to the Kremlin,” Bloomberg reports.
• “Putin intends to continue targeting Kyiv’s energy network and other infrastructure… believing that Donald Trump is unlikely to do much to bolster Kyiv’s defenses, and that signs of restraint from Washington are emboldening the Kremlin,” the article notes.
• “Moscow’s recent tactics underscore the extent to which signs of restraint out of Washington are emboldening the Kremlin as it presses ahead with a war of attrition aimed at forcing Ukrainian concessions,” Bloomberg writes.
• “In the month following the talks, drone and missile attacks increased by about 46%, data compiled by Bloomberg from Ukraine’s Air Force command show. So far in September, Russia has fired 3,500 drones of varying types, almost 190 missiles and more than 2,500 bombs,” Bloomberg cites from public statements.
• “Putin seeks to achieve some visible victories by winter, but he is failing on the battlefield so far. Therefore he turns to nuclear blackmail and psychological pressure, including mass bombardments,” Nikolai Petrov, a senior research fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, told Bloomberg.

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

• “Drone Wars: How Ukraine’s Creative Destruction Rewrote the Playbook on Warfare,” John Garnett and Craig Roach, The National Interest, 09.17.25.

Military aid to Ukraine: 

“How to push a $300 bln Ukraine loan over the line,” Hugo Dixon, Reuters, 09.19.25.

• “Ever since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, policymakers have debated using Russia’s sovereign assets to help Kyiv. Now that the European Commission is backing a ‘reparations loan,’ there is a good chance those funds will finally go towards Ukraine’s defence. Western allies just need to make the deal as big as possible – and push it over the line quickly.”
• “The Group of Seven large industrial economies froze around $300 billion of Russia’s central bank assets after the invasion. … A reparations loan, opens new tab, which I devised with a group of international experts, would be a legally solid alternative to confiscating the assets. It is based on the principle that a country which illegally invades another must pay damages. The key feature of the loan is that Ukraine would only have to repay it if Moscow coughed up war reparations. If Russia refused, the loan would become worthless, and it would lose money.”
• “The key question is exactly how to channel Russia’s assets to Ukraine. One option, which our group is proposing, is to transfer Moscow’s funds from their current depositaries, including Brussels-based Euroclear, to a special purpose vehicle, opens new tab. The SPV would then lend the cash to Ukraine, with the proviso that Kyiv only has to repay the loan if Moscow pays reparations.”
• “Yet the exact mechanism is less important than getting the deal done. Now that the United States has practically cut off financial support, Ukraine faces a cash crunch early next year. The sooner Kyiv gets a reparations loan, the sooner it will have the funds to defend itself. If Russia realizes that Ukraine is not about to run out of cash, it might be more willing to agree a ceasefire. It is therefore vital that the EU decides on a specific mechanism swiftly and gets member states to rally behind it.”

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

"Europe Outlines New Sanctions on Russia," Keith Johnson, Foreign Policy, 09.19.25.

• “The European Union finally announced its latest package of proposed sanctions on Russia, after a week spent trying to satisfy nearly impossible demands by U.S. President Donald Trump for Europe to pile even more pressure on the Kremlin,” Johnson writes.
• “The EU’s slow-but-steady economic onslaught, which coincides with Ukraine’s own aerial offensive against the physical underpinnings of the Russian oil industry, stands in sharp contrast to U.S. inaction. Since Trump took office, the United States has taken no additional steps to increase sanctions pressure on Russia,” Johnson observes.
• “We know that our sanctions are an effective tool of economic pressure. And we will keep using them until Russia comes to the negotiation table with Ukraine for a just and lasting peace,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement, as quoted by Johnson.
• “We are now going after those who fuel Russia’s war by purchasing oil in breach of the sanctions. We target refineries, oil traders, petrochemical companies in third countries, including China,” von der Leyen announced.
• “That is a necessary step, but it is insufficient without U.S. cooperation. Necessary because over the summer, Russia’s use of the shadow fleet to move oil has been creeping back up. Insufficient because EU and U.K. sanctions simply don’t have the reach or the bite that U.S. sanctions do,” Johnson explains.
• Johnson concludes, “The growing bifurcation between Europe and the United States regarding pressure on Russia matters, because only the U.S. Treasury and the global role of the U.S. dollar and U.S. financial system can put real teeth into any sanctions measures.”

"Time for Congress to Move on Ukraine," Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal,, 09.16.25.

• “President Trump continues to tie additional Russia sanctions to unanimous NATO action and the end of European oil imports from Russia, but his real motives remain ambiguous,” the editors note.
• The editorial accuses Trump of repeatedly delaying meaningful action, giving Putin more time to ‘kill more innocent Ukrainians and pocket more territory.’”
• “Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick have proposed a bipartisan bill for secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil and gas; another bill would designate Russia a state sponsor of terror unless it returns kidnapped Ukrainian children,” the editors say.
• “Both bills would likely pass with strong bipartisan support, but have been stalled as Congressional leaders defer to Trump’s diplomatic approach,” according to the editorial board.
• The Wall Street Journal urges Congress to assert its ‘co-equal’ authority, warning that continued delays will make lawmakers complicit in Ukraine’s fate, the editors argue.
• “A Congressional vote would clarify American intentions for Russia and force Trump to take a clear stand on aiding Ukraine or bear responsibility for the war’s continuation,” the editorial concludes.

"Europe’s Delayed Reckoning With Russia: A Plan to Beat the Kremlin on Its Own Terms," Veronica Anghel & Sergey Radchenko, Foreign Affairs, 09.16.25.
 

• “September’s Russian drone incursions into NATO airspace (19 over Poland; another over Romania) marked the first direct engagement with enemies on allied territory, underscoring risks of further escalation,” Anghel and Radchenko write.
• “Europe has spent over $200 billion to support Ukraine and issued 18 sanctions packages, but remains divided, overdependent on U.S. policy swings, and unable to act decisively or coherently on Russia,” the authors find.
• “Putin’s endurance strategy—exploiting Western fatigue and swelling his war economy—seeks to fracture Western unity and impose a ‘client state’ in Ukraine,” according to Anghel and Radchenko.
• “The EU must shift from reactive diplomacy to proactive subversion: seizing Russian assets, attracting defectors and capital flight, and undermining Kremlin stability from within,” they advise.
• “Europe should facilitate the exodus of Russian professionals and regime insiders to weaken Moscow, as skilled worker flight once helped unravel East Germany,” the authors suggest.
• “Long-term, EU policy must prepare for Russia’s post-imperial transition—holding out both deterrence and the prospect of future integration, rather than permanent antagonism,” Anghel and Radchenko conclude.

“How to Toughen Russia Sanctions,” David Cortright, The National Interest, 09.19.25.

• “Instead of using and improving the existing sanctions … the White House has so far relied on tariffs, vowing to punish countries such as India and China that import Russian oil. Tariffs are blunt instruments that generate negative side effects. The recent 25 percent added tariff on India has prompted the Narendra Modi government to seek allies elsewhere, as symbolized by the recent Modi-Xi-Putin photo op. However, it has not reduced India’s purchases of Russian oil, which supply 40 percent of the country’s needs at a discounted rate.”
• “Sanctions offer a more targeted and effective strategy, imposing restrictions on specific entities and individuals rather than entire economies. The sanctions now in force against Russia are being imposed by approximately 40 countries, which collectively represent half of the world’s GDP. They target those in Russia and other countries who manage and benefit from the war or facilitate sanctions evasion. The sanctions have created significant economic and financial hardships for Russia and provide potential leverage for negotiating an end to the fighting.”
• “Many steps can be taken to sharpen the bite of sanctions. The European Union has recently adopted a new round of measures aimed at reducing Russia’s earnings from energy exports and applying pressure on those evading sanctions. The new measures impose sanctions against banks in China and other countries that have financed Russian oil purchases. They include targeted sanctions on the Vadinar refinery in India, which sells products refined from Russian oil to European countries.”
• “Other measures that could be taken to strengthen sanctions include the following:”
  • “Continuing to crack down on the “shadow fleet” of unregulated Russian tankers that are shipping oil without international insurance. The United States and the EU have imposed sanctions against hundreds of these vessels; however, more needs to be done to enforce these measures and impose stricter penalties.”
  • “Accelerating the timeline for implementing the EU ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG).”
  • “Engaging with Kazakhstan and other countries that are allowing shipments of prohibited technology to Russia, offering incentives for stricter border monitoring and customs control, and imposing penalties against specific companies and banks that facilitate this illicit trade.”

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

• “How Russia’s Sanctions Evasion Could Create Lasting Costs,” Jeanna Smialek, New York Times, 09.20.25.

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

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

“Did U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine make things worse?” Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette, 09.19.25.

• “Russia may be hoping to leverage any disagreement between NATO and the U.S. over the appropriate response to the incursions to undermine solidarity and ‘hollow out’ NATO’s Article 5 mutual security guarantee among members,” said Jake Sullivan, former national security adviser to President Joe Biden from January 2021 to January 2025 as well as during Biden’s vice presidency.
• “Russia excels in the gray zone, in areas where there’s murk and ambiguity, and this drone incursion is squarely in the gray zone,” he said, adding that the U.S. and NATO should expect Russia to continue using drones and other forms of hybrid warfare in Europe and the Baltic states unless they’re deterred.
• Given how weak Russia’s economy is right now, the U.S. and Europe have a uniquely “opportune moment” to further ratchet up sanctions on Russian oil… said Sullivan, now Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order at Harvard Kennedy School.
• Another option open to Europe, one that it could take unilaterally, would be to hand Ukraine the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets as a kind of down payment on future reparations for the war, Sullivan said… “I think doing that will get Putin’s attention,” said Sullivan.
• Two things will need to happen to compel Putin to strike a lasting, good-faith peace deal with Ukraine.
• “One, he has to finally realize that he’s not going to be able to achieve his goals on the battlefield—which he has not yet… And then second, he has to recognize that the costs have mounted to such a degree that that he has to go to the table and do a real deal, not the kind of deal he’s proposed so far.”

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

"A Week That Shook the Old Order," Walter Russell Mead, The Wall Street Journal, 09.16.25.

• “What we are seeing today is the accelerating dissolution of the post-1945 world order,” writes Mead.
• “The old order's foreign opponents have combined more effectively to disrupt it. The order's defenders are flailing,” Mead argues.
• “The current tranche of leaders for the most part can neither defend their countries from foreign foes nor defend the political status quo from populists at home,” Mead states.
• “As the old order fades, its boundaries become fuzzy, and its foes respect them less. That is happening in Europe, where Russia daily tests its belief that the trans-Atlantic alliance is more of a bluff than a real and living force,” Mead observes.
• “If the Kirk assassination exacerbates American polarization, the consequences will be global. America's brutal political competition heightens the chance that the promises of one president will be repudiated by his successor,” according to Mead.
• “For now, the upholders of the existing world order lack the conviction and clarity of vision required to defend it,” Mead concludes.
• “There is no reason to suppose that these powers will lose interest in probing the West for weaknesses anytime soon,” Mead writes, referring to Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Iran’s leaders.

"A seamlessly unserious president," George F. Will, The Washington Post, 09.17.25.

• “Trump's seamless unseriousness has surely been noticed abroad. Since Putin took Trump's measure in Alaska last month, Russia's intensified assault on Ukraine has been matched by Russia's undisguised contempt for him,” Will writes.
• “‘Trump is in a normal state, either waiting to talk to Putin, talking to Putin or explaining how well he talked to Putin,’” Will quotes a senior Russian politician as saying with “dripping...disdain.”
• Regarding Trump's threats, Will notes, “When Russia took none of [the steps], and suffered no consequences, Trump emitted another gust of bluster: He would put a recalcitrant Russia in a ‘rough situation.’ It is probable that Putin yawned when, last Friday, Trump said his patience was ‘running out fast’ and ‘we're going to have to come down very, very strong.’”
• On Trump's style, Will observes: “Trump brandishes social media like an overstimulated adolescent (‘Here we go!’),” referencing Trump’s response to the Russian drone incursion over Poland.
• “From Benton Harbor, Michigan (Whirlpool), to Moline, Illinois (John Deere), to the skies where NATO aircraft downed some but not all Russian drones, the world becomes more serious as the president becomes less so. There is an eerie disconnect between events and his flippant ‘Here we go!’” Will concludes.

"What Happened to 'the West'? As America Drifts Away From Its Allies, a Less Peaceful World Awaits," Stewart Patrick, Foreign Affairs, 09.18.25.

• “During the Cold War, the West emerged as a coherent and unitary geopolitical actor, comprising a bloc of (mostly) democratic countries opposed to the Soviet Union and its satellites—the ‘East,’ in common parlance—and distinct from the countries of the ‘global South,’” Patrick explains.
• “The confrontation with the Soviet Union foiled [U.S.] best-laid plans and led the United States to adopt a policy of containment. If there were indeed ‘two worlds instead of one,’ as the U.S. diplomat Charles Bohlen concluded in 1947, when Moscow imposed total control in Eastern Europe, the United States had little choice but to unite the ‘non-Soviet world . . . politically, economically, and in the last analysis militarily,’” Patrick writes.
• “The doctrine of the containment of communism thus gave birth to a more concretely geopolitical—as opposed to nebulously civilizational—West, soon embodied in new institutions such as NATO, an integrating Europe, and the OECD,” Patrick notes.
• “The West persisted as a meaningful geopolitical concept and entity even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its concomitant East,” Patrick argues. “It would have been natural for a club that formed in opposition to the Soviet Union to lose definition after that rival disappeared.”
• “These commitments tangibly affected allied behavior, shaping how Western countries understood their national interests, communicated with one another, and settled occasional disputes, so that, for instance, the notion of war among members of the inner order became inconceivable,” Patrick observes, highlighting the fundamental difference from the East/USSR legacy.
• “This rupture is profound because it is taking place in the inner core of the world order that has existed since the 1940s,” Patrick warns. “The West, the inner order that emerged in the crucible of the Cold War, was a zone of peace. Its members would never war with one another. In its absence, the West leaves behind a world that will be more prone to suspicion, hostility, and conflict.”
• As Patrick concludes, today’s fracturing of Western unity offers opportunities to Russia and other authoritarian or revisionist powers to “accelerate the rise of illiberal multilateralism, a bare bones international order shaped and even dominated by authoritarian great powers.

"Our Allies Are Asking, Why Does Putin Still Own Trump?" Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 09.17.25.

• “Putin keeps spitting in Trump’s eye and Trump keeps telling the world that it’s raining,” Friedman writes, reflecting on conversations with Ukrainian and European officials who “quietly” wonder about the U.S. president’s motives.
• “At the opening of the [Yalta European Strategy] conference President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine could not have expressed more gratitude to Trump… They are clearly hoping that if everyone pretends that Trump is doing a lot… the U.S. president will not abandon Ukraine altogether,” Friedman observes.
• “While Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, told his Parliament the episode was ‘the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II,’ all that Trump could muster was a post on his Truth Social platform: ‘What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!’” Friedman notes.
• “Our president sounds like a teenage blogger commenting on some movie star who did something embarrassing in public—not the leader of the free world,” Friedman comments.
• “Every day that goes by Trump seems to add another condition or another timeline for when he will impose meaningful economic sanctions on Russia, as Putin steps up his attacks on Ukraine,” Friedman writes, highlighting Trump’s shifting demands.
• “I have always avoided the more conspiratorial explanations for Trump’s behavior. I do not believe that the U.S. president is somehow a Putin asset (though he sure knows how to play one on TV). What I believe is that Trump is simply different from any American president since World War II—and not in a good way,” Friedman states.
• “You notice that he doesn’t say it’s Putin’s war—the man who actually started it,” Friedman writes, quoting Trump’s assertion: “‘This is not TRUMP’S WAR,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘It is Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s WAR.’”
• “Sorry, Mr. President. This is YOUR war now. Because you and you alone have the ability to deliver to Ukraine the military resources to send the message to Putin that time is not on his side…” Friedman argues.
• “If you, Mr. President, walk away from Ukraine and let it be overrun by the Russian dictatorship… your name will forever be spoken in the same breath as Neville Chamberlain—and well it should,” Friedman concludes.
• “God bless Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska—a former Air Force brigadier general who responded to Trump’s attempt to weasel out of responsibility with a tweet of his own on X: ‘Mr. President, Putin is the one who is the invader. And now this war is on your watch, and you’ll be judged in the history books in the decades to come by your actions or lack thereof.’” Friedman quotes.

"Putin's Drones and the China Factor," Holman W. Jenkins Jr., The Wall Street Journal, 09.17.25.

• “Mr. Putin may have escalation dominance—but in a war that's a loser for Russia strategically, economically and politically,” Jenkins writes.
• “Russia's unarmed drone invasion of the airspace of North Atlantic Treaty Organization members Poland and Romania this month will do nothing to alter the West's steady and deepening—if unspectacular and piecemeal—commitment to Ukraine's defense,” Jenkins observes.
• “Even the strategically innocent President Trump seems to be figuring things out. Yes, the war began under Mr. Biden. No, this fact can't be used to immunize a Trump presidency from the very large consequences of a Western failure in Ukraine,” Jenkins asserts.
• “To my eye, the drone stunt smacks of the Kremlin fishing around to show it has yet another card to play,” Jenkins contends.
• “But the dilemma is real only as long as Russia is sending unarmed drones to tweak Western publics. If Russia violates allied airspace with armed drones or actually attacks targets, NATO can (and should) mount a devastating reply, starting with cruise missiles to destroy Russia's drone factories,” Jenkins argues.
• “Mr. Trump, with his strange notion that he and Mr. Putin are pals, and his even stranger clinging to the idea that Mr. Putin knows what he's doing, is especially prone to this miscalculation,” Jenkins cautions.
• “Unfortunately, as the West's wobbly bet on Mr. Putin's breaking point remains up in the air, a factor of new and intruding importance is Mr. Putin's big brother in China. To understand our situation properly, 2026 may be the year we begin to understand the Ukraine war as a Chinese proxy war against the West,” Jenkins warns.
• “The government in Beijing has assumed a primary role in keeping the war going. To the extent there's a Manstein in the Russian system, 2026 may also be the year when he and his confreres begin asking themselves if the war is being prolonged to serve China's interests,” Jenkins concludes.’

"How a No-Fly Zone Could Save Ukraine," James Stavridis, Bloomberg Opinion, 09.17.25. 

• “For more than three years, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been desperately pleading for Western allies to ‘close the skies’ over his nation,” Stavridis writes.
• “President Vladimir Putin’s objective is to break the will of the Ukrainians,” Stavridis observes, noting Russia’s “brutal bombing campaigns that do not discriminate between legitimate military targets and civilian population centers.”
• “The reason for this reticence is simple: fear of escalation to direct combat between Russian and NATO forces,” Stavridis explains, referring to NATO’s previous reluctance to establish a no-fly zone.
• “But starting last week, that calculus may have changed, with a significant incursion of Russian drones into NATO member Poland,” Stavridis argues.
• “NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said what happened in Poland was not an ‘isolated incident…’ Poland’s foreign minister said NATO allies should be empowered to shoot down ‘drones and other flying objects’ over Ukrainian territory,” Stavridis reports.
• “Let’s face it: A no-fly zone is a very aggressive move, and it carries real risk of further escalation. But given Putin’s recklessness, ruthlessness and intransigence—most clearly demonstrated by his ignoring Trump’s personal efforts at diplomacy—we have arrived at the time to close the skies over Ukraine,” Stavridis concludes
• “In concert with other economic and diplomatic tools, it may be the only way to convince Moscow that its attempts to conquer all of Ukraine will prove futile,” Stavridis asserts. Calls for no-fly zone over Ukraine have been made by not only James Stavridis but also Nathaniel England of University of Warsaw. In his comment for Bloomberg retired admiral Stavridis acknowledges the risks of imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine by NATO, but still recommends doing so even though enforcement of such a zone can lead to a direct conflict of Russia with NATO in what could then lead to a nuclear exchange. In his turn Russia’s strategist-in-chief, no doubt, is aware that the recent incursions of their drones and warplanes into airspace of NATO countries increase probability of a Russian-NATO direct war, but still condones those. Such condoning could be yet another attempt to dissuade European members of NATO from increasing military support for Ukraine at the time when Trump’s America is cutting military aid to Ukraine.*

“NATO can draw a red line with Putin. Turkey showed how,” Editorial Board, Washington Post, 09.21.25.

• “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brinkmanship toward NATO countries is becoming downright reckless. He faced no consequences for a drone incursion into Poland, and predictably escalated with three MiG-31 fighter jets flying into Estonian airspace on Friday. The best path forward is for NATO leaders to make clear that any more Russian military aircraft entering their airspace will be shot down immediately.”
• “Nearly a decade ago Turkey set an example for how to respond to this kind of behavior. On Nov. 24, 2015 the longtime NATO member shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter over its border with Syria. The incident didn’t cause World War III, but it did make clear to Putin that he would pay a price for testing a country’s resolve.”
• “Turkey’s actions in 2015 came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had warned Russia that further incursions would not be tolerated. They weren’t, and one of the Russian pilots was killed by Syrian rebels on the ground. The rest of NATO backed its ally, Moscow fulminated and imposed sanctions on Ankara — but ultimately took it in stride. This is how deterrence is established.”
• “Prospects for peace in Ukraine are increasingly bleak, and Trump has shown no urgency about applying real pressure on Putin to end the war. It’s no surprise that Russia has responded to weakness by aggressively probing. Naming a red line and enforcing it alongside allies would send an important message to Putin — and all of America’s adversaries.”

"Europe's Moment: A Sanctuary Strategy for Ukraine," Nathaniel England, RUSI, 09.19.25.

• “Ukraine has faced more than three years of relentless assault from an imperialist Russia determined to erase its sovereignty,” England writes.
• “Words of solidarity have not stopped missiles or drones and hesitation has allowed Moscow to dictate the terms of engagement… it is now time for Europe to seize the initiative,” England argues.
• “The urgency has been underscored by the overnight Russian drone incursion into Poland on 9-10 September… This latest incident has emboldened European leaders to consider further steps,” England notes.
• “This European coalition would create a zone where Ukraine’s statehood endures and its armed forces are freed for decisive battles… forces Moscow into strategic recalculation, re-establishes European credibility, further protects European airspace, and ultimately promotes the conditions for peace,” England proposes.
• “The first element is a no-fly zone (NFZ) over central and western Ukraine,” England describes, explaining that “enforcement rests on two components: layered air-defense to intercept missiles and a quick-reaction patrol force to engage any intruding aircraft or drones.”
• “The second element is a defensive ground presence on Ukraine’s border with Belarus… Its purpose would be to prevent Moscow from opening a new axis of attack, as it did during the initial invasion in February 2022 and to relieve Ukraine of the need to keep large forces tied down in reserve,” England explains.
• “A bounded, defensive mission at Ukraine’s request reduces miscalculation and forces Moscow to think twice before widening the war,” England contends, adding that “warnings are not real thresholds but psychological tools to weaponize European caution.”
• “Ukraine is already degrading Russia’s military capacity more effectively than NATO could ever achieve without direct war. A sanctuary ensures that this survival effort is secured, sustained and multiplied in the short term,” England concludes.

"Why Putin Can't Afford to Let Ukraine Prosper," Michael Tory, The Wall Street Journal, 09.18.25.

• “There is, however, a far more credible explanation, based on hard economic data, for Russia's obsession with dominating Ukraine. The most serious threat to Putin's regime is the vast disparity in prosperity between Russia and the nations on its periphery that have escaped Moscow's rule,” Tory argues.
• “Since 1990, the former Russian satellites that have joined the European Union have generated an almost 10-fold average increase in national GDP. By contrast, the national GDP of Russia itself and the non-EU countries on its western border have grown by just a factor of four over that same period,” Tory notes.
• “In 1990, the Russian Federation's GDP was twice the combined GDP of the new EU countries ($500 billion versus about $250 billion). Today the combined GDP of the new EU countries is $2.4 trillion compared with $2.2 trillion for Russia, a gap in prosperity that grows wider with each passing year,” Tory observes.
• “Ukraine is, in effect, the tipping-point state. Once it joins the EU and generates economic growth comparable to the other former Soviet satellites already in the economic bloc, the gravitational pull of Ukraine's prosperity will be irresistible for its three smaller neighbors,” Tory writes.
• “For Putin, the implications of Ukraine's prospective economic success are dire. The Russian public is so conditioned to view Ukraine as ethnically and linguistically similar to Russia that its prosperity would raise difficult questions inside Russia,” Tory contends.
• “A full and permanent decoupling of Ukraine from Russia's sphere would indeed leave Russia encircled—not by NATO but by a sweeping region of democratic and economic prosperity. This vast arc… would become a giant mirror reflecting back to the Russian people the abject failure of their own country's system. It would form a humiliating reprise of the Berlin Wall, this time on a continental scale,” Tory concludes.
• “Because Putin can never admit to this other motivation, he must resort instead to a litany of imagined provocations and ancient grievances, reaching back through hundreds of years of contested history. The underlying reality remains economic, however,” Tory maintains.

"Wars of deception are coming for America. It isn't ready." Mick Ryan & Peter W. Singer, The Washington Post, 09.16.25.

• “If 2025 has taught us one thing about war, it is that surprise is alive and well,” Ryan and Singer write.
• “These operations employed tried-and-true tactics of misdirection and manipulation, only now they use drones and AI algorithms to evade enemy countermeasures,” according to Ryan and Singer.
• “Technology has made daring raids such as these affordable. Ukraine used inexpensive drones costing under $1,000 each to damage multimillion-dollar strategic aircraft, inflicting economic damage orders of magnitude greater than the cost of the attack,” they observe.
• “The U.S. still overwhelmingly relies on sophisticated but costly technological overmatch to deliver battlefield success,” Ryan and Singer warn, noting, “The cost of bombs and flights for the U.S. Air Force in its strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was an estimated $196 million.”
• “A wave of 19 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace… The drones were reportedly of the Gerbera type, which cost as little as $10,000 each and thus are often used as decoys to misdirect and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses… They then shot down just four of the nineteen drones with AMRAAM missiles, each costing over $1.6 million,” they report.
• “The U.S. homeland remains profoundly vulnerable to similar surprises. The looming wave of smarter drones, advanced AI and sophisticated 3D printing promises to redefine both the battlefield and how trickery is conducted upon it,” they write.
• “This year, Ukraine is on track to build, buy and use over 4 million drones, while the U.S. will produce only tens of thousands annually,” Ryan and Singer highlight.
• “It is often said that the most powerful form of deception is self-deception. We should not deceive ourselves into thinking that what happened to Russia and Iran couldn’t happen to us,” Ryan and Singer conclude.

“Speech by Sir Richard Moore, Chief of SIS, 19 September 2025,” Gov.UK, 09.19.25.

• “Trust, truth, deception and spying are key components of the biggest challenge our Service and our country has faced in my five years as Chief: Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine. We have been at the forefront of efforts to support the Ukrainians in their self-defense, and their defense of the principles on which we all depend for our peace and security.”
• “The suffering of the Ukrainian people is immense. The war has seen levels of death and destruction not seen in Europe since World War Il, and civilians have been targeted with a cold and calculated brutality. In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up its attacks on civilian targets still further.”
• “There can be no equivalence between the suffering of the aggressor and the victim, but it is absolutely clear that Putin’s lack of concern for human life extends also to his own people. Russia has incurred more than a million casualties, a quarter of them killed, as poorly trained troops from Russia’s poorest regions are fed into the meat grinder.”
• “… I have seen absolutely no evidence that President Putin has any interest in a negotiated peace short of Ukrainian capitulation. He is stringing us along. Because the issue has and has always been sovereignty: Putin denies Ukraine’s sovereignty and its very existence as a country and a nation.”
• “Putin has sought to convince the world that Russian victory is inevitable. But he lies. He lies to the world. He lies to his people. Perhaps, he even lies to himself… The big picture remains that Putin is mortgaging his country’s future for his own personal legacy and a distorted version of history. As such, Russia’s economy and demography, and its means to project imperial power, are in long term decline—and Putin’s war is accelerating this decline.”
• Greater powers than Russia have failed to subjugate weaker powers than Ukraine. In the end, if we hold our nerve, Putin will need to come to terms with the fact that he has a choice: to risk an economic and political crisis that threatens his own rule, or make a sensible deal.”

"What Is War? Ask an Underwriter," Elisabeth Braw, Foreign Policy, 09.17.25.

• “An enormous deal hinges on the definition of this seemingly obvious term, especially because most warlike acts cause massive financial losses,” Braw writes on the consequences for Russia-related insurance claims.
• “‘In some cases, it’s easy to say what constitutes war—for example, Ukraine. There’s no doubt that war has caused the damage. But in other cases, it’s less obvious,’” Braw quotes insurance expert Ringbakken.
• “Last year, the owner of the two Nord Stream pipelines sued the insurers for some 400 million euros in relation to the damage caused by the 2022 explosions,” Braw reports, adding, “the insurers had labeled the explosions as warlike acts, which meant that Nord Stream’s all-risk insurance didn’t apply.”
• “In 2017, hackers widely believed to be working for Russia hit Ukraine with the NotPetya cyberattack, which Wired reported ‘hit at least four hospitals in Kiev alone, six power companies, two airports, more than 22 Ukrainian banks... and practically every federal agency,’” Braw recounts.
• “All told… Western firms incurred losses of more than $10 billion. When some of them tried to claim on their insurance, their insurers denied their claims, arguing that NotPetya was a warlike act,” Braw explains.
• “‘The wrangle between all-risk and war risk is always there because there are shades of gray,’ Carman said. ‘When is something a war or conflict? Nobody is quite sure anymore.’”
• “These days… questionable acts could amount to proxy warfare. The stakes aren’t just geopolitical, but also actuarial,” Braw concludes.

“War and the Modern Battlefield: Insights From Ukraine And The Middle East,” CSIS Defense and Security Department, CSIS, 09.16.25.

• “The United States and its allies face one of the most dangerous international security environments in recent history. Russia and Ukraine are locked in Europe’s largest land war since World War II, war has periodically engulfed the Middle East between Israel and Iran, and significant tensions persist in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, East China Sea, and Korean Peninsula. An axis of adversaries that includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea may be headed toward deepening bilateral relations.”
• “The nature of warfare is still, as Clausewitz writes, ‘an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.’ Several facets of warfare that were central to the Cold War—such as nuclear weapons, irregular warfare, artillery and missiles, national resilience, and the mobilization of society—have returned to the forefront.”
• “But there are new dimensions in warfare. There will likely be a proliferation of cheaper and more lethal unmanned systems—air, undersea, surface, and ground. There will also likely be an explosion of open-source intelligence and growing transparency on the battlefield. AI, quantum sensing and computing, biotechnology, space-based sensors, and other technologies may be increasingly important and create a ravenous need for data storage and cloud computing.”

“Adversaries and the Future of Competition,” Seth G. Jones, CSIS, 09.16.25. (Part of “War and the Modern Battlefield: Insights from Ukraine and the Middle East” report.)

• “This chapter examines cooperation between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.1 It asks several questions: How has cooperation evolved between China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other actors, including during the Ukraine war? How might cooperation evolve over the next three to five years? What are the implications for modern warfare?”
• “This chapter outlines three possible security arrangements between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea: (1) weakening engagement, (2) deepening bilateral relations, or (3) a multilateral alliance.”
• “This chapter concludes that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are most likely headed toward deepening bilateral relations. This arrangement would involve axis countries increasing military and dual-use exports and imports, expanding the scale and scope of bilateral and, potentially, multilateral exercises and training, deepening defense industrial cooperation, establishing bilateral treaties or pacts that commit the signatories to greater military cooperation and even mutual defense in case of attack, and deploying soldiers to fight in the wars of other axis countries.”
• “There are still likely to be areas of disagreement and tension between these countries, as well as limits to their cooperation. But the overall trend is likely to be greater cooperation, which has significant implications for the future of warfare.”

“The Perils of Getting Too Personal in Foreign Policy,” Hillary Rodham Clinton and Keren Yarhi-Milo, New York Times, 09.22.25.

• “When President Trump picked up the phone on June 17 to speak with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, he expected the conversation to showcase his command of personal diplomacy. Instead, it unraveled into a rupture. … Within weeks, Mr. Trump had slapped 50 percent tariffs on Indian exports, and Mr. Modi was literally holding hands with the leaders of Russia and China.”
• “Employing personal diplomacy to assess the intentions and resolve of adversaries has a long history. President John F. Kennedy left his Vienna meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 shaken, believing he had been outmatched. The Soviets read his unease as weakness and went on to press Kennedy harder in Berlin and later in Cuba. Mr. Bush claimed to have looked into the eyes of President Vladimir Putin of Russia and seen his soul, a positive assessment that aged poorly as Russia tightened its grip on its neighbors and crushed dissent. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a master politician, misread Joseph Stalin at Yalta, trusting his personal assurances while Eastern Europe slipped behind the Iron Curtain.”
• “Does Mr. Trump view personal chemistry with foreign leaders as helping his strategy or a substitute for having one? … Mr. Trump has also invested significantly in his personal relationship with Mr. Putin, but that has not helped end the war in Ukraine or prevent Russian drones from entering Poland, a NATO ally.”
• “America’s institutions exist to prevent this kind of misjudgment. The State Department, the intelligence community and even NATO are not shackles on American interests, but the scaffolding that ensures them. Harry Truman tied American power to NATO so that trans-Atlantic defense would last beyond any one administration. … Joe Biden relied on the wisdom of his intelligence officials to preemptively reveal Russian intentions to invade Ukraine.”

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

• "If Russia Wins: A Scenario —a stark warning of Nato’s need to deter Putin," Anne-Sylvaine Chassany, Financial Times, 09.18.25.
• "How Assassinations Became Normal Again," Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, 09.18.25.
• "Fixing Europe’s Firepower: How the EU Can Funnel Its Wealth Into Its Defense," Dalibor Rohac & Eduardo Castellet Nogués, Foreign Affairs, 09.18.25.
• “Trump the Useful Idiot,” Nina L. Khrushcheva, Project Syndicate, 09.17.25.
• “Russian Drones and NATO’s Response: Implications for German Security Policy,” German Council on Foreign Relations, 09.18.25. (Podcast)
• “How to Fill NATO’s Manpower Gap,” Alex Wagner and Kristen Taylor, The National Interest, 09.20.25.
• “The Cold War Never Ended,” Andrew C. Kuchins, The National Interest, 09.16.25.
• “Putin's Endless War: Imperial Ambitions and Europe's Moment of Truth,” Aaron Lea and Boruch Taskin, The Moscow Times, 09.21.25. (In Russian.)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

"Great changes unseen: The China-Russia nexus and European security," Alicja Bachulska & Ivana Karásková, ECFR, 09.16.25.

• “Under Xi Jinping, China prioritizes security above all, officially embracing a worldview that expects Western decline but still fears American primacy,” the authors argue.
• “China’s partnership with Russia is central to Beijing’s global strategy; no ‘reverse Nixon’ policy will split China from Moscow, regardless of the outcome in Ukraine,” they explain.
• “Chinese support for Russia is unwavering, as Beijing views the war in Ukraine through the lens of its rivalry with the U.S.,” Bachulska and Karásková contend.
• “Europe should abandon hopes of swaying China on Russia and instead build a long-term, realistic policy for managing relations with Beijing, recognizing deliberate Chinese efforts to prolong Europe’s security crisis,” the authors recommend.
• “Scenarios considered include: Russian victory, unsettling U.S. focus; Russian defeat, creating risks for China; or ongoing war, strengthening China while weakening Russia,” the study outlines.

“Why Can’t Russia and China Agree on the Power of Siberia 2 Gas Pipeline?” Sergey Vakulenko, Carnegie Politika, 09.22.25.

• “[P]olitical and transactional considerations have long meant a final agreement [on the pipeline] has proved elusive.”
• “For Moscow, China is the only buyer capable of taking the huge quantity of gas it has available, and not just because Russia has lost the European market. Russia’s Yamal Peninsula gas reserves were too large to be absorbed by European customers even when Russian-European gas trade was in full swing before the full-scale war with Ukraine.”
• “While China needs gas, and Russia has huge gas reserves, there is still a major stumbling block: Beijing’s informal policy is that no single exporter of critical natural resources should enjoy an excessively large slice of the Chinese market. And it’s true that current gas supplies from Russia to China make Russia’s market share look significant.”
• “There are also political and transactional considerations. For Russia, the breakeven price at the Chinese border is about $125 per thousand cubic meters. For China, the alternative to Russian pipeline gas is LNG, which currently costs an average of $370 per thousand cubic meters. That leaves a wide margin for negotiation.”
• “Moscow likely wants to rectify past mistakes and negotiate terms at least comparable to those enjoyed by Central Asian states. But China’s negotiators are also aware of the prices that Russia has agreed to in the past and of its cost position, so the existing arrangement serves as the anchoring point in the current talks. Why should China make concessions when its tough stance yielded results when Russia was in a far stronger geopolitical position?”
• “The shifting geopolitical tectonic plates mean that the Russian side will likely continue to shout from the rooftops about having reached yet another important milestone on the road to a deal over Power of Siberia 2. But as the Greek philosopher Zeno tells us, it doesn’t matter how close to the finish you are—an infinite number of steps still remain.”

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

• “Putin in Beijing: The Russia–China Dyad Deepens,” Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash, Observer Research Foundation, 09.20.25.
• “Tianjin SCO Summit 2025: Key Takeaways and Emerging Trends,” Aleksei Zakharov, Observer Research Foundation, 09.18.25.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

“Preventing an Era of Nuclear Anarchy: Nuclear Proliferation and American Security,” Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation and U.S. National Security, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, 09.22.25.

• “Emerging threats and changing technologies are increasing the risks that more countries will seek nuclear weapons or the means to produce them in the near future. And in a moment of renewed proliferation potential, many of the tools and mechanisms the United States has traditionally relied upon to combat the spread of nuclear weapons are becoming less effective. These developments, and the attendant security risks they produce, warrant revisions to U.S. anti-proliferation strategy.”
• “Task Force Findings and Recommendations”
  • “Nuclear acquisition by any state, friend or foe, would diminish U.S. power and influence and inject additional uncertainty into an already fraught geopolitical landscape. More states with nuclear weapons means higher risk of nuclear use.”
  • “Preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons is central to U.S. national security and should remain a top priority; the United States should consistently and vigorously oppose proliferation to any state.”
  • “U.S. strategy should not be oriented only toward preventing adversaries from acquiring nuclear weapons, but should also be equipped to address the potential nuclear weapons ambitions of U.S. allies and partners.”
  • “Efforts to prevent proliferation in specific cases are more likely to succeed if anchored in internationally recognized principles, practices, and institutions and backed by a coherent U.S. strategy.”
  • “The existing architecture for preventing proliferation remains integral to U.S. strategy, but Washington must spearhead efforts to modernize and strengthen institutions and tools to anticipate future needs. Such efforts will be more effective, and will come at a lower cost (financially and politically), if the United States works with other countries.”
• “With these principles as a guide, the Task Force urges the United States to pursue a revitalized strategy for combating proliferation based on five pillars. These are not listed in order of importance and aspects of each will be critical for success going forward.”
  • “Crafting a new extended deterrence compact with allies”
  • “Pursuing pragmatic diplomacy with China and Russia”
  • “Upholding the nonproliferation ‘grand bargains’”
  • “Revitalizing U.S. nuclear exports to enhance nonproliferation”
  • “Strengthening the foundations for U.S. leadership.”

“Putin Proposes One More Year of Nuclear Caps With U.S.,” Ivan Nechepurenko and Paul Sonne, New York Times, 09.22.25.

• “President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Monday that the Kremlin was ready to limit the number of its deployed nuclear warheads and launchers for one more year as long as the United States did the same, a move that would maintain the caps imposed by the last remaining arms control treaty between Moscow and Washington.”
• “Speaking at a meeting with members of the security council in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin said that Russia wanted to ‘avoid provoking a further strategic arms race.’”
• “‘We believe that this measure will become viable only if the United States acts in a similar way and does not take steps that undermine or violate the existing balance of deterrence potentials,’ Mr. Putin said in televised remarks. … In his comments on Monday, Mr. Putin did not say whether he would be willing to resume the [missile-site] inspections or data sharing.”
• “New START is the last remaining strategic arms-control treaty between the United States and Russia. … In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Putin ordered close monitoring of American plans to expand the U.S. missile defense system and of U.S. preparations for the deployment of interceptors in space. American missile-defense efforts have long rankled the Kremlin, which has viewed them as a threat to its nuclear deterrent.”
• “‘We will proceed from the understanding that the practical implementation of such destabilizing actions could undermine our efforts to maintain the status quo in the strategic offensive arms sphere,’ Mr. Putin said of the U.S. missile defense plans. ‘We will respond accordingly.’”

“Returning to an Era of Competition and Nuclear Risk,” Heather Williams, Joseph Rodgers and Elizabeth Kos, CSIS, 09.16.25. (Part of “War and the Modern Battlefield: Insights from Ukraine and the Middle East” report.)

• “Russia, China, and North Korea have all ramped up their nuclear threats, with the goal of gaining territory in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and East Asia, respectively. … Meanwhile, all three countries have worked to rapidly upgrade, expand, and diversify their nuclear arsenals.”
• “In the past few years, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have expanded cooperation in military, economic, and political spheres, including with respect to nuclear issues. Adversary nuclear collusion has included joint exercises, transfers of fissile material, and mutual support in international diplomatic forums.”
• “This chapter argues that the future of modern warfare will feature increased reliance on nuclear weapons by adversaries and allies alike. During the Cold War, the United States responded to adversary nuclear coercion by making judgments about Soviet red lines and signaling resolve to defend allies in the face of crisis. The United States addressed threats to regional deterrence from expanding Soviet nuclear capabilities and possible collusion with other adversaries by strengthening its own nuclear capabilities and alliance networks.”

Counterterrorism:

"The Return of ISIS: The Group Is Rebuilding in Syria—Just as U.S. Forces Prepare to Leave," Caroline Rose and Colin P. Clarke, Foreign Affairs, 09.18.25.

• “Nine months after the longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad was toppled by a rebel offensive, Syria faces a litany of new challenges… Adding to the tumult is a resurgence of one of Syria’s most enduring challenges: the Islamic State, also known as ISIS,” Rose and Clarke write.
• “Since the Assad regime was toppled in 2024, ISIS has waged a terror campaign throughout Syria… the group is taking advantage of Syria’s post-Assad chaos to rebuild and reconstitute, presenting fresh obstacles to the country’s long-sought stability,” Rose and Clarke note.
• “Last year, ISIS took responsibility for 294 attacks in Syria, up from 121 in 2023; estimates by the United Nations and human rights groups are even higher,” the authors report.
• “As the frequency of terrorist attacks increases, the new Syrian government risks squandering its political legitimacy by failing to protect the country’s minorities,” Rose and Clarke warn.
• “This situation will grow more dangerous still if the Trump administration follows through on its plan, announced in April, to begin withdrawing the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country,” Rose and Clarke contend.
• “If ISIS is able to regain momentum in Syria, it will inevitably turn to conducting attacks throughout the region and beyond. It behooves Washington to prevent ISIS’s ability to rebuild and once again destabilize the entire Levant,” they argue.
• “ISIS’s growing confidence has coincided with an incremental withdrawal of U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq, placing the future of the Global Coalition into question,” Rose and Clarke relate.
• “A premature U.S. departure at such a fragile moment in Syria could empower ISIS, undermining the very mission that brought U.S. forces to Syria in the first place,” the authors conclude.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

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

• “Putin’s War Engine: How Healthy is Russia’s Oil and Gas Industry? With Sergey Vakulenko,” Alexander Gabuev and Sergey Vakulenko, Carnegie Politika, 09.18.25. (Podcast)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

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

• "America Is No Longer a Safe Haven for the Russian Opposition," Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy, 09.18.25.
• "He Fled Putin’s War. The U.S. Deported Him to a Russian Jail," Milana Mazaeva & Paul Sonne, The New York Times, 09.16.25.

• “Why Vladimir Putin Decided to Arrest Evan Gershkovich,” Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson, Politico, 09.21.25. (From “SWAP: A Secret History of the New Cold War” by Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson.)

   

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

"Drones Against Recession: Industrial decline has become almost universal, but three military sectors and consumer demand are keeping the economy afloat," Re: Russia, 09.12.25.

• “Economists are divided on whether Russia has entered a technical recession; the answer depends on the method of seasonal adjustment,” the authors report.
• “Rosstat data shows Q2 2025 GDP growth slowed to 1.1% year-on-year, but independent analysts, like VEB’s Institute, estimate the economy contracted by 0.6% in both Q1 and Q2; official methodology allows the government to avoid calling it a recession, at least until 2026,” the analysis explains.
• “Industrial output declined in June and July, with the extractive sector shrinking 2.3% year-on-year and 14 of 20 main manufacturing branches reducing output between January and July,” Re: Russia writes.
• “The only strong industrial growth is in military-linked sectors: pharmaceuticals, fabricated metals, other transport equipment, and computers/electronics, with UAV ('aircraft manufacturing') output up 99% year-on-year in July,” according to Rosstat data cited by the authors.
• “Civilian and consumer sectors are contracting, but demand and lending are providing temporary support to the overall economy,” the report observes.
• “Business climate assessments have deteriorated, with actual sectoral indexes at crisis levels in extraction, construction, and trade; only consumer-related segments fare somewhat better,” the authors note using Central Bank and corporate survey data.
• “Corporate lending grew moderately in Q2 2025, but company profits fell 8.4% year-on-year, and inflation-adjusted investment declined nearly 4%,” Re: Russia details.
• “Cuts to government support programs will likely hit non-military sectors hardest, while military spending is protected, perpetuating the resource imbalance driving macroeconomic instability,” the analysis concludes.

“Can Russia’s Militarized Economy Ever Return to a Civilian Model?” Alexandra Prokopenko, Carnegie Politika, 09.19.25.

• When the Ukraine war ends, “Russia will face the task of putting its entirely militarized economy back onto a civilian footing and redistributing demand from military to civilian industries. At least, that is what the government’s economic bloc and the central bank would like to see, having warned repeatedly of accumulating risks and the threat of stagnation.”
• However, “the conversion of the defense industry back to the production of civilian goods is not a priority, even if the war in Ukraine were to end in the foreseeable future. On the contrary: the Kremlin plans to rearm the military and replenish its depots, which will maintain demand for military-industrial complex products for at least the next three years.”
• “Even if Putin wanted to return to a peacetime economy, the Kremlin has staked everything on the military sector and the mobilization model over the past three years, resulting in Russia becoming caught in a stagnation trap with low growth rates and chronic internal imbalances. Any attempt to rapidly cut spending will result in collapse. But nor can the military machine be fed indefinitely. Sooner or later, Russia will have to travel the difficult path back to civilian life through a synchronized restructuring on all fronts.”

"From battlefield to ballot box: Why Russia is drafting war veterans into politics," Mikhail Komin, ECFR, 09.17.25.

• “In his February 2024 annual address to parliament and cabinet, Vladimir Putin unexpectedly called for a ‘renewal’ of Russia’s ruling elite. The ‘new elite’, he said... should include participants in the so-called ‘special military operation’ (SVO), that is, Russia’s war in Ukraine,” Komin writes.
• “In this year’s regional and municipal races, the ruling party United Russia elected more than 800 officials who previously fought in Ukraine,” Komin reports.
• “The head of a Kremlin-aligned think-tank estimates that veterans of the war in Ukraine could comprise up to 40% of the Duma after the 2026 elections. While this projection is likely exaggerated, it is evident that the Kremlin is testing something new,” Komin notes.
• “The growing influx of veterans into government at every level will broaden the coalition that favors confrontation with Ukraine and the West,” Komin warns.
• “If the SVO veterans sideline the technocrats who keep the war economy running, they could emerge as the primary opposition to any future softening of foreign policy even if the Kremlin begins to feel the strain of depleted resources,” Komin cautions.
• “While all political parties have become more active in fielding ‘SVO veterans’, the majority of candidates who secured victories were nominated by United Russia,” Komin observes.
• “However, filling Russia’s government with SVO veterans carries significant long-term risks for the Kremlin. Many...are ill-prepared for political office, and several have already responded clumsily to social tensions,” Komin concludes.

"Sergei Karaganov’s remarks at Part 2 of the roundtable 'Russia and the World Geopolitical Storm: Scenarios and Strategies,'" Russia in Global Affairs, 09.17.25¹ Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

• “The West, suffering strategic defeat, has moved to a strategic counteroffensive. Their main goal is to prevent China’s rise, but they know they can't achieve it unless they undermine China’s strategic support—Russia.”
• “The West’s counteroffensive began in the late 2000s, became clear in 2011–12, and now Russia faces a strategic counteroffensive relying on long-term military attrition.”
• “After the 2008 crisis and the collapse of their system, [the West] shifted from desperate defense to attacks; now Russia faces a strategic counteroffensive relying on long-term military attrition. On this path, they also wreck Iran—to weaken both Russia and China.”
• “Europe presents the greatest threat. The U.S. provokes regional destabilization, but avoids direct conflict; Europeans are dragging us toward World War III—they’ve lost all strategic thinking.”
• “The situation is compounded by the fact that we weakened our nuclear deterrence and became complacent. Now we try to restore it, but timidly.”
• “Destruction of human civilization as we know it is possible. We could play ourselves into this, considering geopolitics. We are moving towards a Third World War nonstop. We need to think about how to stop this movement or at least protect our homeland.”
• “We still haven’t really overcome Eurocentrism. The war [in Ukraine] is forcing us to do so, but too slowly. We should have started a firm confrontation with the West in 2018. Now we need to focus on our internal future: Siberia, Asia.”

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

• "Russia’s most famous diva tells Vladimir Putin to end the war," The Economist, 09.18.25.
• “Top businesses face debt crisis,” Denis Kasyanchuk and Alexander Kolyandr, The Bell, 09.19.25.
• “A Man Without Age, or What Putin Fears,” Vladimir Ruvinsky, The Moscow Times, 09.21.25. (In Russian.)
• “Prices are rising like clockwork: a new wave of rising food prices is rising in Russia,” Tatyana Rybakova, The Moscow Times, 09.18.25. (In Russian.)
• “How Russia’s besieged economy is clinging on,” The Economist, 09.21.25.

Defense and aerospace:

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

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• No significant developments.

   

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

"Russia Is Shrewdly Playing the Long Game in Africa," Hanna Notte, War on the Rocks, 09.17.25.

• “With its resources sunk deep into Ukraine, the Russian military has weighed carefully whether and when to engage elsewhere, standing aside amid recent conflicts in the South Caucasus and Middle East. An exception to this pattern of inaction is in West Africa,” Notte writes.
• “Africa Corps’ expanding footprint is low investment, low risk, directed by the Russian government, and embedded in broader political efforts,” according to Notte.
• “Russia may be able to gain access to valuable mineral resources and entrench authoritarian governance while projecting maritime power into NATO’s southern flank,” Notte warns.
• “In May 2024, the U.K. Ministry of Defense assessed that Africa Corps consisted of ‘more than 2,000 regular soldiers and officers,’” Notte cites.
• “Access to Togo’s port of Lomé or São Tomé and Príncipe’s port could additionally help Russia sustain its Sahelian operations,” Notte reports, summarizing Russian strategic thinking.
• “Russia’s information campaigns have linked the country’s efforts in West Africa and its war against Ukraine into one meta-narrative, portraying them as parts of an overarching ‘anti-neocolonial’ struggle against an exploitative West. In this telling, Russia is a ‘sovereignty provider’ to these countries,” Notte observes.
• “Russia will likely seek to turn more African players off cooperation with the West by savvily exploiting longstanding grievances with Europe and the United States, and use those openings to introduce Africa Corps,” Notte concludes.
• “Western capitals run serious risks by letting Africa Corps expand unimpeded,” Notte warns, calling for a more coordinated U.S. and European response.

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

• "Russia’s Troubling Church Takeover," Katherine Kelaidis, Foreign Policy, 09.19.25.

Ukraine:

"Fighting corruption strengthens Ukraine in the war against Russia," Matthew H. Murray, Atlantic Council UkraineAlert, 09.11.25.

• “The fight against Russia and the fight against corruption are two fronts of the same war,” Murray writes.
• “These protests were driven by a more fundamental desire to safeguard the country’s anti-corruption institutions against efforts to turn back the clock and undo the progress achieved since the Revolution of Dignity,” Murray reports, describing the July 2025 demonstrations.
• “The EU publicly demanded the full reversal of the legislative changes, stressing that independent anti-corruption institutions are a prerequisite for Ukraine’s EU accession,” Murray notes.
• “Bolstered by this international support, Ukraine’s civil society won the day. Zelenskyy moved quickly to reverse course, proposing new legislation that reinstated the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies,” Murray states.
• “There can be no trade-offs for Ukraine when it comes to combating corruption, just as there is no room for half measures in the fight against Russia,” Murray concludes, reflecting the lesson of this episode.
• “Ukrainian society’s lack of tolerance for corruption is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the defense sector, where the stakes could not be higher. As Ukraine fights for its very existence, citizens and soldiers alike have demonstrated zero patience for anyone accused of exploiting the war for private gain,” Murray observes.
• “Unlike Russia’s traditionally authoritarian and highly centralized system of government, Ukrainian democracy pulses with the will of the people. It is a highly dynamic and decentralized political culture that derives its strength from the grassroots level,” Murray argues.
• “Each advance in transparency and the rule of law strengthens Ukraine’s standing, both at home and abroad, while exposing the malign intent of Russia’s disinformation,” Murray writes.

"Zelenskyy Is Losing Touch With Reality," Paul Hockenos, Foreign Policy, 09.16.25.

• “Recent military reform proposals by President Zelenskyy have sparked widespread confusion and protests in Kyiv, with critics saying the measures were poorly communicated and suggest his advisory circle is out of touch with society,” Hockenos reports.
• “One controversial draft law would have imposed five- to ten-year sentences for military insubordination and 12 years for desertion, drawing protests and being likened by demonstrators to Russian authoritarian practices,” Hockenos writes.
• “A second measure allowing men under 22 to travel abroad raised fears of mass emigration of military-age youth, with some Ukrainians warning that the move will hurt frontline recruitment,” the author notes.
• “Zelenskyy’s rationale—that the travel changes would encourage boys to finish school in Ukraine and maintain a connection to the country—was met with skepticism by observers such as Anton Grushetsky of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology,” Hockenos relays.
• “The administration’s recent missteps, including an aborted attempt to curb Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions, exposed vulnerabilities in Zelenskyy’s inner circle and provoked large-scale civil protest,” Hockenos observes.
• “Despite ongoing distrust in parliament and parties, Zelenskyy personally retains support from about two-thirds of Ukrainians, but confidence is fragile as he approaches six years in office with elections suspended under martial law,” according to Hockenos.
• Hockenos concludes that Zelenskyy urgently needs to overhaul his team by drawing on Ukraine's robust civil society, think tanks, and grassroots institutions.

"Ukraine faces a $19bn budget black hole," The Economist, 09.17.25.

• “Since Russia invaded, Ukraine has each year named a price. After setting the budget, the government publishes the sum by which its revenues are expected to fall short of spending. Then, friendly governments, aided by the IMF, cajole one another into filling the gap,” The Economist explains.
• “This year they will stump up $38bn, an amount equivalent to a fifth of Ukraine’s GDP. Next year’s process, however, is proving tougher than normal… so far pledged only $31bn,” the article reports.
• “Donald Trump is skeptical of funding Ukraine’s war and has stopped America’s flow of economic aid to the country. Meanwhile, European governments confront stretched finances of their own,” The Economist notes.
• “Conflicts often end owing to the exhaustion of resources, rather than battlefield breakthroughs. The more Ukraine’s supplies run short and the less it has left to pay fighters, the greater the chance it is pushed into talks and an eventual settlement,” The Economist observes.
• “A settlement forced by Ukraine’s finances would represent a tragedy, and a waste of money,” the article concludes, reflecting the perspective of those who want Ukraine to negotiate from strength.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Russia Isn’t ‘Influencing’ Moldova’s Election,” Laura Thornton, Foreign Policy, 09.22.25.

• “The phrase ‘influence operations’ is utterly inaccurate to describe what is happening in Moldova. It implies a gentle thumb on the scale, where malign actors spread disinformation and meddle in political narratives to nudge an electoral outcome in a favorable direction.”
• “In Moldova, Russia is engaged in a multi-vector war. It aims not only to thwart Moldova’s trajectory toward European Union membership—approved by a narrow majority in a 2024 referendum—and bring it into Russia’s sphere of influence, but also to use the country as a geographically well-situated base to conduct hybrid attacks within the EU and operations in Ukraine.”
• “Under Chatham House Rules, a U.S. representative told delegation that the United States has ‘no dog in this fight.’ Yet the implications of this election interference are wide-reaching; in addition to Russia’s ambitions for Moldova as a whole, it is also a laboratory for testing Russian war tactics. A security expert told the delegation that Moldova, with Romania on its western border and approximately 35 percent of Moldovans holding Romanian passports, is a Trojan horse through which Russia can infiltrate the EU.”

“Moldova's Crucial Parliamentary Election. What's at Stake?” Florent Parmentier, IFRI, 09.22.25.

• “The electoral campaign, running from Aug. 29 to Sept. 26, crystallizes a profound reconfiguration of internal divides—between pro-European and pro-Russian forces—and external ones, in a regional context shaped by the war in Ukraine and Moscow’s attempts at interference.”
• “The vote … will renew the 101 seats of the Moldovan Parliament. This election is shaping up to be crucial, as it will determine the geopolitical future of this former Soviet republic, located between the European Union’s eastern border and Ukraine.”
• “President Maia Sandu’s ‘Action and Solidarity Party’ (PAS) is facing off against the Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP), the country’s main pro-Russian force. The campaign reveals partisan fragmentation and rising distrust of the elites, with the emergence of hybrid formations such as Alternativa.”
• “In the grip of economic difficulties, Moldova is particularly suffering from an energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine and structural vulnerability exacerbated by emigration. The European Union support’s Moldova’s pro-European course, while Russia is stepping up its interference through covert funding, disinformation, and pressure, particularly in Transnistria and Gagauzia.”
• “This election represents a strategic test for democracy and Moldova’s European future. Three post-election scenarios are possible: victory for the PAS, a heterogeneous proRussian coalition slowing down integration, or a fragmented parliament leading to instability. Moldova is thus becoming a testing ground for EU-Russia relations in the post-Soviet space.”

"Trump's charm offensive saves Belarusian prisoners' lives," Max Boot, The Washington Post, 09.17.25.

• “‘Donald Trump practically saved my life,’ [opposition leader Sergei Tikhanovsky] told the New York Times, ‘and I will always be grateful for it,’” Boot quotes.
• “Trump kept up the charm offensive… phoning Lukashenko just before the Alaska summit. ‘I had a wonderful talk with the highly respected President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko,’ Trump wrote on social media on Aug. 15, with his trademark flattery. ‘The purpose of the call was to thank him for the release of 16 prisoners. We are also discussing the release of 1,300 additional prisoners,’” Boot reports.
• “Clearly, Lukashenko sees these steps as the prelude to a broader relaxation of relations with Washington, culminating in the lifting of sanctions and the return of a U.S. ambassador to Minsk. ‘Let's try to work out a global deal, just as Mr. Trump likes, a big deal,’ he [Lukashenko] said on Thursday,” Boot writes.
• “Personally, I believe that saving people from these torture chambers—already nine political prisoners have died in the past four years, and countless others have suffered permanent damage to their health—is a worthy goal,” Artyom Shraibman, an exiled Belarusian analyst, told Boot.
• “‘But as for broader geopolitical aims—such as separating Lukashenko from Putin,’ [Shraibman] cautioned, ‘anyone who believes U.S. engagement can meaningfully reduce Belarus's dependence on Russia is delusional.’”
• “Trump has done a good thing by securing the release of some of Lukashenko's victims… But as far as I am concerned, as long as Lukashenko refuses to stop seizing more prisoners or aiding Russia's war of aggression, Trump should not lift more sanctions,” Boot argues.
• “After all, Trump has proved time and again that he prefers the company of dictators over democrats,” Boot concludes.

“An Unlikely Road to Peace for Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Thomas de Waal, Foreign Affairs, 09.22.25.

• The author writes that in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, “as much by luck as by skill, Trump may have pulled off something of great significance.” Following months of bilateral talks, “Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a brief but meaningful statement agreeing to avoid further conflict” and initialed a 17-point “peace agreement” normalizing diplomatic and political relations.
• Additionally, the author writes, “Armenia has given development rights to this 27-mile transportation corridor across its territory to an American company while maintaining sovereign control of the passage, which is to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, and Azerbaijan will be given ‘unimpeded access’ to and from Nakhichevan.”
• With both Armenia and Azerbaijan eager to be free of Moscow’s influence, the author writes, so Trump’s proposal to host the peace accords was attractive. “If you are going to break pledges you made to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Oval Office is a good place to do so,” de Waal writes.
• However, the August peace agreement is still fragile and “will succeed only if the United States follows through on implementing the TRIPP and helping reopen other routes shut down by the conflict,” according to the author.
• “Trump’s backing gives Baku and Yerevan the courage to stand up to Moscow. Having brokered a provisional agreement between Baku and Yerevan—and lent his name to a crucial new transit corridor—Trump now needs to understand that he cannot do this on his own. Rather, he must invest in more old-fashioned American diplomacy to help bring lasting peace to the region,” de Waal concludes.

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

• "The West Is Losing Georgia to Russia, Zourabichvili Says," Sam Skove, Foreign Policy, 09.17.25.

Footnotes

1. The previous part of this roundtable can be accessed here. An English language summary of that previous part is here.

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

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

Slider photo by AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky.