2 Ideas to Explore

1. Several recent commentaries in the Western press explicitly frame the Iran war as strategically advantageous for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Taken together, they describe a consistent narrative: Moscow gains economically, militarily and politically as the conflict diverts Western attention and resources from Ukraine. For instance, Bloomberg’s Marc Champion argues that the war benefits Russia—whose leader discussed the Iran crisis with his U.S. counterpart by phone on March 9—by driving up global oil prices¹ and potentially restoring markets for sanctioned Russian energy. Champion is echoed by his colleague Julian Lee, who writes that the war-induced disruptions of Gulf oil supplies and sanctions waivers have turned Russian crude into a “hot commodity,” boosting Moscow’s revenue just as its war budget faces strain. The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Feng concurs, writing  “The Big Winner From the Persian Gulf Energy Crisis? Russia.” But Russia is not the only beneficiary of the Iran war, according to The Washington Post’s Max Boot. While the war benefits Russia by pushing oil prices up and easing sanctions pressure, China is also benefiting from the conflict by tying down U.S. resources and attention while Beijing expands its technological and military capabilities, according to Boot. Several more authors, including ex-NSA and Harvard professor Jake Sullivan, stress military implications of the Iran war for Russia’s war against Ukraine. “Russia Is Big Winner as Iran War Drains Supplies That Ukraine Needs,” Bojan Pancevski and Drew Hinshaw write in The Wall Street Journal. Likewise, Peter Dickinson of the Atlantic Council concedes that “Iran War Could Save Vladimir Putin’s Failing Ukraine Invasion,” writing that diversion of air-defense systems may reinforce Russia’s war effort. Last, but not least, Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute sees how “Iran War Gives Russia the Upper Hand Over Ukraine.”
2. Moscow’s role in Iran’s war reflects a limited partnership with Teheran rather than a mutual defense alliance, Nicole Grajewski writes in Russia Matters. Moscow benefits strategically from the Iran conflict, but Russia will not defend Iran with troops, airpower or open confrontation with Washington; their 2025 “strategic partnership” treaty explicitly avoids mutual defense obligations, she writes. Instead of large-scale arms transfers, Russia’s main contributions are technical and operational, such as potential intelligence and targeting support, and shared expertise in electronic warfare and GPS jamming and protection. In this war, Russia plays a “backstage partner,” Grajewski of Science Po concludes. Nikita Smagin agrees with Grajewski that Russia will not engage in a direct military intervention on Iran’s side because Moscow “values its relationship with Israel” and “does not want to ruin its relations with Trump.” If the current Iranian regime survives “it could be obliged to hand Moscow significant political influence” in return for aid, with Russia prepared to trade support for “a slice of [Iran’s] sovereignty,” as it did with Syria’s Assad, Smagin writes for Carnegie Endowment.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

"The Geopolitics of Russia’s Civil Nuclear Exports Four Years into the War," Jane Nakano, CSIS, 03.06.26.

• “Four years since commencing the full-scale war on Ukraine, as of February 2026, Russia is still building 6 nuclear reactor units at home and has at least 20 units under active construction in 7 countries,” the author writes.
• “This white paper presents five observations on the evolving geopolitics of Russia’s nuclear exports four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” the author writes.
  • “1. The war’s effects on Russia’s influence in global nuclear commerce have been mixed.”
  • “2. Western sanctions have posed financial and logistical challenges to Rosatom’s projects, but most projects are staying the course.”
  • “3. The war has altered Russia’s reactor export strategy and priorities.”
  • “4. Russia’s global fuel and decommissioning services face an uncertain future.”
  • “5. Rosatom is expanding its business in the Arctics development.”
• “While a strong track record in project deliveries and affordability are important, so is a sense of economic sovereignty and energy security. The war has not wiped out the existing slate of Rosatom projects around the world, but it has significantly dimmed the outlook for Russia’s leadership in the global nuclear commerce,” the author concludes. 

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

“‘Uranium Can Be Stored Anywhere’: Pavel Podvig on Iran’s Ability to Build the Bomb”, interview with Pavel Podvig, Republic, 03.08.26. Machine-translated. Clues from Russian Views.

• Podvig explains that the 400 kg of 60-percent–enriched uranium Iran had before the 2025 bombings is “already weapons-usable material”: states usually go to 90 percent, but “uranium with 60% U‑235 can quite well be used to make a weapon.” He stresses that the UF₆ gas in small cylinders is easy to hide—“if the bombs didn’t directly destroy the containers, they can be stored anywhere… it’s just a cylinder: it lies there and doesn’t ask to be fed”—and adds that Iran has “a lot of tunnels,” so “from the Iranian side there is no problem” to conceal it. Converting that gas into metal and then into a bomb is “not trivial” and “you can’t do it on your knee,” yet he refuses to say it is impossible: “to say it is completely impossible, you can’t.”
• Podvig argues that the U.S. “mowed the lawn” by bombing Iran’s declared enrichment sites instead of maintaining control through inspections, saying that “by and large” Trump’s 2018 exit from the JCPOA “launched this whole process,” replacing supervision with pressure that “didn’t work.” He contends that until the June 2025 strikes, “all the material in Iran was under IAEA safeguards,” whereas now “it’s not better, of course,” and “nobody knows where those 400 kilograms are.” On Europe’s reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine, he links Macron’s talk of a stronger French nuclear role to “the war in Ukraine” and “Trump and the Americans,” noting that Europeans “understand the problem: who will protect them from aggressive Russia?” but is skeptical that France would “sacrifice Paris to save Tallinn.”
• In his concluding remarks, Podvig says he “completely excludes” scenarios in which Russia helps Iran hide nuclear material or resumes nuclear testing, arguing there is “no usefulness” for Moscow and “many problems” in accounting for such material. He doubts either an Iranian “North Korea–style” NPT withdrawal or a U.S. ground invasion of a country of “90 million people,” predicting instead that Iran will remain formally within the nonproliferation regime, “drag out the process,” but stop short of openly building a bomb. “I still think that, in the end, Iran will not go down the path of creating nuclear weapons,” he says, while warning that the situation “will remain tense for quite a long time” and that only a return to inspections and “rules of behavior” can provide a more reliable alternative to endless bombing.

“Biden's National Security Advisor [Jake Sullivan] On Trump's War With Iran; Will War In Iran Embolden Russia?” Fareed Zakaria GPS, 03.08.26.

• Sullivan tells Zakaria that while U.S. forces are “remarkable at being able to achieve tactical objectives,” the Iran war was launched “without being fully thought through,” leaving “a completely unclear objective” and “perhaps a dozen different explanations” that “shift by the hour by the day.” He says Trump “is going to draw the wrong lesson” from the seamless Maduro raid—thinking “we can use military force anywhere, anytime, for any purpose”—and argues that at a critical moment when Trump “could have come in in massive support of Ukraine… President Trump decided instead to launch this massive adventure in the Middle East,” with no “imminent threat to the United States” and no clear endgame.
• The Iran war is emboldening Russia, according to Sullivan. Sullivan calls reported Russian targeting help to Iran “a huge deal,” saying Moscow is “supplying intelligence so that Iran can pinpoint locations where U.S. service members are present,” and adding that “one of the big winners in all of this is Vladimir Putin and Russia.” He notes that Putin is “seeing the United States move all of its air defense interceptors to the Middle East and stop giving them to Ukraine,” so he is “firing more missiles and drones at Ukraine, who has less to be able to defend itself,” while higher oil prices mean “more money pouring into its coffers”; meanwhile, Zelensky “is trying to actually help America defend itself” by offering Ukrainian expertise against Shahed drones, but Trump has “blamed the Ukrainians for this war” and effectively “rewarded” Putin by diverting resources to a “war of choice in the Middle East.”

“Attack on Iran Shows Russia Losing Clout but Perhaps Reaping War Dividends,” Mary Ilyushina and Catherine Belton, Washington Post, 03.05.26.

• Ilyushina and Belton write that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s assassination is the latest blow to Vladimir Putin’s network of anti‑Western partners and starkly reveals Moscow’s diminished ability to shield allies, after U.S.-backed ousters in Syria, Venezuela and now Iran. A Russian academic close to diplomats concedes “Russia and China were not able to do anything,” while Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha notes Putin has “lost three of his closest pals in little more than a year” and “not helped any of them,” arguing that as Russia is bogged down in its “senseless war” on Ukraine, its global influence is “dramatically falling.”
• At the same time, the authors report that the Kremlin sees potential upside if the United States is drawn into a long Middle East campaign: Washington’s focus and air-defense assets could shift from Ukraine to the Gulf, and retaliatory strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure are already driving up oil prices just as Russia’s war budget is under strain. Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev predicts crude could top $100 a barrel, and one European official says “it’s clear Russia is interested in a long war that will cause the Strait of Hormuz to be blocked,” though analysts caution only a sustained disruption would meaningfully ease Moscow’s fiscal pressures.
• Ilyushina and Belton note that Khamenei’s killing also unsettles Putin personally, recalling his horror at Muammar Gaddafi’s lynching and highlighting how even entrenched autocrats can be eliminated by outside force, a shift in “international norms” that, analyst Nikita Smagin says, “Russia naturally does not like.” They add that Moscow is trying to limit damage by betting it can work with whatever successor regime emerges—much as it retained ties after Nicolás Maduro’s fall in Venezuela and Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in Syria—and by posing as a mediator in calls with Gulf leaders, though expert Hanna Notte doubts Russia will be “a main factor,” given how fixated it remains on the “one big war” in Ukraine 

"Putin Is the Iran War’s One Sure Winner," Marc Champion, Bloomberg, 03.03.26.

• Champion argues that “Russia is already a clear beneficiary of President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran,” stressing that this benefit “will grow larger the longer the conflict continues.” He says a four‑to‑five‑week operation would “significantly drain US missile magazines—both for offense and defense—while also driving up the global prices of oil and natural gas on which the Russian economy and war chest depend.”
• He writes that “any prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz or destruction of Gulf oil and gas export capacities could also revive the market for sanctioned Russian energy,” noting that tankers “floating around with full loads of unsold oil since the US pressured India to cut its purchases from Moscow would likely find buyers.” At the same time, he warns that maintaining a high‑intensity air campaign “requires considerable intelligence gathering,” so scarce U.S. ISR assets “critical to Ukraine’s defense… would likely get pulled in other directions should the Iran strikes continue.”
• Strategically, Champion contends that “on all of these counts, Trump’s Iran war could not have come at a better time for the Kremlin, or a worse one for Kyiv,” because Russia’s war effort was “in serious trouble” with slowing progress, rising casualties, and a budget under strain. He concludes that “a spike in global oil prices would come to the rescue,” and that any reduction in U.S. missiles or a White House perception that “after Iran the US needs a ceasefire in Ukraine, regardless of the terms” would ease pressure on Putin to compromise, making him “the Iran war’s one sure winner.”

“Russia Is the First Clear Winner From War in Iran,” Julian Lee, Bloomberg, 03.06.26.

• Lee says “Russia has emerged as the first clear winner of the war in Iran” after Washington let Indian refiners “resume purchasing Moscow’s oil” via a temporary waiver. Because attacks have “effectively bottled up about 20% of the world’s oil supplies in the Persian Gulf,” he writes, prices have jumped to the “highest since 2024,” turning Russian oil that “struggled to find buyers last week” into “a hot commodity.” India’s imports of Russian crude had fallen by 50% under US tariff pressure, leaving “140 million barrels” of Russian oil at sea; now, he reports, “Indian buyers are snapping up cargoes that were stranded at sea and paying a premium to get them,” just as sanctions were “starting to bite” into the Kremlin’s war chest.

“Russia sits back as the Iran war escalates, expecting long-term gains,” Vladimir Isachenkov, AP, 03.08.26.

• Moscow’s bet, analysts say, is that a “prolonged conflict would not only draw attention away from Ukraine but would also redirect crucial resources like missile defense systems to the Persian Gulf,” as Sergei Poletaev puts it, with Galeotti adding, “The more Patriots that get used up in this conflict … the fewer available to the Americans generally and more uncomfortable they will feel about passing or selling any of them to the Ukrainians.” Sam Greene argues that the notion Putin “suffers when he loses allies… has no basis in observable fact,” and says he “will not risk his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump to help Iran,” calling Trump “Putin’s greatest source of leverage over Europe.”

"Trump Puts Putin in an Iran Dilemma," Alexander Baunov, Foreign Policy, 03.04.26.

• Baunov argues that Khamenei’s killing by a joint U.S.-Israeli strike, backed by Trump, forces Putin into an awkward position: an old ally has been destroyed with the help of a U.S. president Moscow hoped to treat as a special partner.
• Publicly, the Russian foreign ministry issues classic anti‑U.S. denunciations, but the Kremlin avoids directly blaming Trump, delegating criticism to others while preserving Trump’s “friendly neutrality” toward Russia in the Ukraine war and hopes for sanctions relief.
• Putin’s reaction is shaped by his obsession with leaders’ violent deaths since Qaddafi, and by the lesson he draws from Iran’s fate: a regime that failed to push U.S. power away from its borders and allowed itself to be encircled—an outcome he cites to justify his own war on Ukraine.
• The episode, Baunov writes, undercuts the Kremlin’s bet that Trump represents a fundamental Western political revolution, bolsters Russian elites who think the U.S. will always be hostile “with or without Trump,” and raises succession anxieties inside Russia if a leader is suddenly removed.
• More broadly, the Iran strike exemplifies the collapse of the rules‑based order and the rise of naked coercion by great powers—yet, paradoxically, it mainly targets fragile autocracies; in that sense, Russia now objectively “ranks alongside Iran, Syria, and Venezuela,” explaining Putin’s fixation on fellow strongmen’s fates.

“The Iran war puts Vladimir Putin in a tough spot”, The Economist, 03.07.26

• The Economist says Russia’s response to the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran has been “muted,” noting that Putin’s first reaction was only a condolence telegram calling Khamenei’s killing “a cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law,” while the Kremlin avoided naming the culprits. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov underlined Russia’s caution, insisting “This is not our war,” and adding, “We must do what corresponds to our interests…cynical as that may sound.” The piece notes that much of Iran’s Russian‑built air defense has been “destroyed,” and that a Yak‑130 trainer “pressed into service as a fighter” became “an easy target for an Israeli F‑35,” underscoring that “there is, in fact, little Russia can do to help Iran,” and that “for Mr. Putin, friendly relations with Donald Trump may take precedence.” 
• Economically, the magazine writes that “the war’s effects are mixed” for Moscow: the price of Russian oil has risen from “less than $50 in December to $72 this week,” well above the “$59 assumed in Russia’s government budget for 2026,” offering “temporary relief” after oil and gas revenues in January were “50% lower year-on-year.” Yet it concludes that “on balance, it is a strategic loss: a further demonstration that Russia is unwilling or unable to protect its allies,” noting that Putin is “likely to navigate between keeping Iran on side and leveraging the relationship” with Trump, and that Russian TV is now airing anxious comparisons to Iran—one Duma member even warning that the president “should no longer travel abroad for fear of suffering Khamenei’s fate” and calling to “put in place collective leadership,” a thought “Mr. Putin likes [least] to entertain.”

“What Does War in the Middle East Mean for Russia–Iran Ties?”, Nikita Smagin, Carnegie Politika, 03.06.26.

• Smagin writes that U.S.–Israeli strikes have inflicted “colossal damage on Iran,” killing Khamenei and wrecking infrastructure, and warns that a prolonged war “would jeopardize Russian interests in Iran,” from the North–South corridor and a planned “Russian ‘gas hub’ in Iran” to projects like Rosatom’s nuclear builds and power plants. Yet he argues the Kremlin will not abandon Tehran: Russia has condemned the strikes as an “unprovoked act of armed aggression,” but “direct military intervention can be ruled out” because Moscow “values its relationship with Israel” and “does not want to ruin its relations with Trump.” Instead, Smagin contends, if the regime survives “it could be obliged to hand Moscow significant political influence” in return for weapons and aid, with Russia prepared to trade support for “a slice of [Iran’s] sovereignty,” as it did with Assad.

“How Trump’s War in Iran Has Echoes of Putin and Ukraine,” Anton Troianovski, New York Times, 03.08.26.

• Troianovski contrasts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s claim that the United States “didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it” with Putin’s 2022 line, “We didn’t start the so-called war in Ukraine. Rather, we are trying to finish it,” arguing that both leaders avoid calling their campaigns wars and frame them as forced responses. He notes Speaker Mike Johnson’s insistence, “I think it’s an operation,” alongside Russian Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin’s description of Ukraine as a “special military operation,” and pairs Putin’s 2022 warning that Ukrainian troops must “immediately lay down arms and go home” or bear “responsibility for the possible bloodshed” with Trump’s Iran speech urging soldiers to “lay down your weapons” or “face certain death.”
• The article says Russian and American rhetoric also converge on overconfidence. Putin bragged in 2022, “We haven’t even yet started anything in earnest,” while Trump echoed, “We haven’t even started hitting them hard.” Former Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba warns that “American commentators are again talking about a ‘short war,’” just as they did about Russia’s invasion, and cautions that it will be short “only if Washington quietly scales down its goals, gives up on regime change in Iran, and sells a much smaller outcome as victory.” “Breaking a large country,” Kuleba adds, “is hard even for the United States.”

“Ukraine Is Iran’s Drone Training Range,” Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, 03.06.26.

• The Journal argues that Iran’s lethal drone campaign across the Middle East is the direct product of years of experimentation over Ukraine, where Tehran first supplied Shaheds to Russia and then helped build a factory at Yelabuga that now turns out thousands of long‑range drones a month. With more than 53,000 such drones launched at Ukraine in the past year alone, the editors say Kyiv has become the “training range” for the Moscow‑Tehran axis.
• They contend no Western military has more practical experience than Ukraine at tracking, jamming and shooting down mass drone salvos cheaply, and note that Washington has now formally asked Zelensky for Ukrainian specialists to help counter Shaheds in the Middle East. Yet, the editorial blasts Trump for refusing to give Ukraine the long‑range systems it needs to hit Russian drone plants and depots, forcing Kyiv into endless “whack‑a‑mole” interceptions that also deplete U.S. and allied interceptor stocks.
• The board insists the Kuwait attack that killed six U.S. troops should clarify that America and Ukraine face “common enemies” whose battlefield lessons are shared across theaters, whether Washington likes it or not. They credit Trump for taking military risks to strike Iran’s regime but warn that treating Ukraine and Iran as separate problems is a dangerous illusion, arguing that U.S. security now depends in part on Ukraine’s survival as a front‑line member of the coalition confronting the Moscow‑Tehran drone threat.

“Can Ukraine help defeat Iran’s drone swarms?”, The Economist, 03.06.26.

• The article explains how Iran’s Shahed one‑way attack drones, derived from earlier designs like the Touphan and refined by Russia as the Geran‑2, are now “raining down on the Gulf”: over 2,000 have been fired in a week at Israel, Arab states, US forces and energy infrastructure. Cheap (tens of thousands of dollars), truck‑launched, and producible at up to 500 per day, they can saturate defenses—Jack Watling notes a Patriot battery was lost after being swamped by 75 drones. High‑end systems like Patriot and THAAD are too scarce and costly for mass use, Iron Dome is ill‑suited, and stopgap measures (fighters, Apaches, old Vulcan guns, and Israel’s lone Iron Beam laser) expose a losing economic and capacity equation.
• The piece argues that Ukraine, with the most experience against Shaheds, is now central to fixing this. Since 2024 it has pioneered cheap FPV interceptor drones, around $2,500 per shot, many with AI‑assisted terminal guidance; a commander insists, “A Shahed should be intercepted with something at least ten times cheaper.” These FPVs now account for about 70% of Ukraine’s Shahed kills and are being adapted to sea via uncrewed “drone‑picket” boats, which Gulf states are eyeing. Zelensky has offered Ukrainian expertise and systems to help America and regional partners but is leveraging that to demand more Western air‑defense assets—especially Patriot interceptors—arguing Iran used Ukraine as a “testing ground” to learn how to defeat Western equipment

“‘Designed to Wreak Havoc’: The Cheap Drones Shaping the War With Iran,” Paul Mozur and Adam Satariano, New York Times, 03.07.26.

• Mozur and Satariano describe how the U.S. reverse‑engineered Iran’s Shahed to create the low‑cost LUCAS drone, then fielded it in roughly 18 months as a $35,000 one‑way attack system used to strike Iranian infrastructure and saturate air defenses. As they report, U.S. Central Command boasted that the new drones deliver “American‑made retribution,” while former Pentagon official Michael Horowitz argues that the spread of cheap, long‑range, semi‑autonomous systems is “changing the character of war.” Lauren Kahn, a former Pentagon adviser, stresses that this is a rare case of the U.S. simply copying an adversary’s design because it “filled a gap” in American capabilities and was far cheaper than missiles like the $2.5 million Tomahawk.
• The authors show how Shaheds and LUCAS fit into a broader proliferation of inexpensive strike drones that can hit airports, embassies, data centers and skyscrapers across the Gulf, producing images that defense analyst Anna Miskelley says are “designed to wreak havoc” and serve a “broader terror objective.” Iran has cached thousands of drones and can sustain daily swarms for weeks, while defenders struggle with radar blind spots and interception costs running into millions per shot. Drawing on Ukraine’s experience with Shahed swarms, Volodymyr Zelensky insists that “Ukraine’s expertise in countering ‘Shahed’ drones is currently the most advanced in the world,” and says that is why “so many requests” for help now come from Gulf and Western officials.

“What We Know About Drone Use in the Iran War,” Steve Feldstein and Dara Massicot, Carnegie Emissary, 03.02.26.

• Feldstein calls U.S. adoption of a Shahed‑derived LUCAS drone evidence that “technological innovation doesn’t flow in a single direction,” noting Iran’s designs “have clearly showed their benefits” so that “it should come as little surprise that the United States would emulate this design.” He stresses that at about $35,000 versus $2.5 million for a Tomahawk, LUCAS embodies a key lesson: “Mass matters, cost can be decisive, and ‘good enough’ precision can deliver significant advantages.” Massicot adds that Iran is launching “hundreds of Shahed drones—as many if not more drones than ballistic missiles” to wear down defenses, and that while interception rates are “impressive,” such methods are “resource‑intensive and expensive” and will “drain certain types of interceptors quickly.” She argues Ukraine has “developed proven, layered solutions” using “fighter aircraft, helicopters, and jamming or spoofing” plus “anti‑aircraft guns, interceptor drones, and other low‑cost capabilities,” and insists that “now is the time to start—and catch up quickly” by importing those low‑cost point defenses into the Gulf.

"How to Think About Trump’s War With Iran," Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 03.03.26.

• Friedman holds four simultaneous views: he hopes the clerical regime in Tehran falls; he thinks airpower alone is unlikely to topple it and could instead yield either a milder “Islamic Republic 2.0” or state disintegration; oil and financial markets will help determine when the war ends; and Trump/Netanyahu’s assaults on rule of law at home must not be ignored amid talk of democracy for Iran.
• He argues Iran has been the region’s main imperial power since 1979—using proxies to dominate Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen—and that weakening Tehran has already contributed to Assad’s fall and Hezbollah’s rollback, opening space for more “inclusive” politics if Iran’s current regime is replaced or defanged.
• Friedman sees a plausible scenario in which figures such as Hassan Rouhani or Javad Zarif push surviving Iranian leaders to cut a “Trump deal” (giving up nukes, proxy wars and ballistic missiles for sanctions relief and regime survival), which might eventually lead to real democracy but could also look like rescuing a blood‑soaked regime.
• He stresses the risk of Iran’s territorial breakup—given its large non‑Persian minorities—and warns that full disintegration could send oil to $150 a barrel by taking Iranian exports off the market and imperiling the Strait of Hormuz, on which Europe now relies more heavily after phasing out Russian gas.
• The column notes wider geopolitical ripple effects: Xi Jinping is watching U.S. weapons shred Russian‑supplied Iranian air defenses, which may dampen thoughts of invading Taiwan, while any outcome in Iran could reshape Israel’s regional standing and prospects for normalization—if, and only if, an Israeli government is willing to pursue a genuine two‑state framework with the Palestinians.

“The dangerous rise of decapitation warfare,” David Ignatius, Washington Post, 03.05.26.

• Ignatius notes Trump justified killing Khamenei by saying, “I got him before he got me… Well, I got him first,” and argues that “‘decapitation’ is emerging as the American way of war,” a strategic “‘fire and forget’ missile” aimed at destroying regimes while “building a new Iran is an afterthought.” Trump concedes the dilemma himself: “Most of the people we had in mind are dead. … Pretty soon, we’re not going to know anybody,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the United States will “finish its demolition of the regime — and then gauge the prospects for political reconstruction.”
• Former CIA officer Jonny Gannon tells Ignatius that assassination can “help you avoid a larger war” but carries “martyrdom effects; hard-liner succession; erosion of norms; and intelligence degradation (because dead men don’t talk),” as advanced killing tools spread in what AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman calls a “Hezbollahization” of technology.

“The Mirage of a New Middle East,” Dalia Dassa Kaye, Foreign Affairs, 03.06.26.

• Kaye argues Trump’s war with Iran rests on “overly optimistic assumptions” that decapitating the regime will either spark a pro‑U.S. uprising or so weaken Tehran that regional instability fades, ushering in a “new Middle East.” She contends Iran is more likely to see IRGC hard‑line rule or chaotic collapse, while most regional conflicts, militias, and anti‑Israeli militancy would persist regardless.
• She warns that hopes the war will pull Arab states closer to Washington and normalization with Israel are misguided. Iran’s strikes on neighbors, U.S. bases, and critical infrastructure will fuel popular anger at both Tehran and Washington, make hosting U.S. forces look dangerous, and harden public opposition to Israel, even as Gulf governments still need pragmatic ties with Iran after the fighting stops.
• Kaye stresses the conflict risks empowering other U.S. rivals—China may exploit U.S. distraction to pressure Taiwan; Russia may gain in Ukraine as U.S. weapons shift to the Middle East—while further eroding international norms on the use of force already weakened by Western double standards. She concludes there is “no silver bullet” for a new regional order and that this war will likely entrench the old Middle East, making damage control and a cease-fire urgent.

"The Trump Doctrine is here. It ends forever wars," Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, 03.03.26.

• Thiessen argues Trump’s strike on Iran does not break his promise to avoid “forever wars” but instead aims to end a 47‑year Iranian war against the United States, citing a long record of Iranian‑backed attacks, terrorism, and support for proxies.
• He contends that by destroying Iran’s leadership, nuclear program, and repressive infrastructure from the air, Trump can eliminate the core threat that justifies large U.S. deployments in the Middle East and enable a real pivot to the Indo‑Pacific and the Western Hemisphere.
• Thiessen dubs this approach the “Trump Doctrine”: using sanctions, tariffs, diplomacy and, if needed, regime‑decapitating military force—without U.S. ground invasions—to coerce adversaries, as seen from Venezuela to Iran.
• In this model, “the Iranian people are the boots on the ground”: after weeks of airstrikes, Trump expects Iranians to “take over your government,” with the implied threat that any future hostile regime could also be struck and removed.
• If Trump succeeds in defeating “Islamic radicalism in Iran,” Thiessen argues, he will rank alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan as one of the most consequential U.S. presidents for transforming the global order.

"The War with Iran Is An Opportunity to Reshape the U.S.-Israel Relationship," Belfer Center, 02.28.26.

• “The current war with Iran serves, first and foremost, American strategic interests in a consolidating bipolar world order: weakening the China-Russia-Iran axis, removing the Iranian threat to American interests in the Gulf, cutting off Beijing's access to sanctioned oil, and enabling the long-delayed pivot to Asia,” Barak Sella wrote.
• “This changed with their increased military involvement with Russia and Iran’s incessant support of China as their most important economic and military partner,” Sella noted.

"Trump May Come to Regret This," Ben Rhodes, New York Times, 03.02.26.

• Rhodes argues that Trump’s new war on Iran—launched unilaterally and without congressional authorization—extends the post‑9/11 “forever war” into yet another country, with no clear endgame and enormous risks of regional blowback, civil conflict, and refugee flows.
• He warns that even those who welcome the regime’s decapitation should be uneasy with a United States that increasingly “follows no rules,” acts like an old empire demanding tribute, and uses tariffs, sanctions, and military force as instruments of “calculated chaos.”
• For would‑be nuclear states, Rhodes writes, the lesson is that “North Korea’s arsenal brought security that Iran’s negotiations could not”; for powers like Russia and China, the message is that “might makes right,” accelerating the erosion of the old U.S.-led order.
• At home, Trump’s personalized use of the newly renamed Department of War, his musings about the Insurrection Act, threats against political opponents, and efforts to harness AI for mass surveillance show how his militarism abroad is tied to an authoritarian project at home.
• Rhodes calls on Democrats to align with public opinion, the Constitution, and basic humanity, offering an alternative to forever war and insisting that U.S. government power be used to solve citizens’ problems rather than to seek new enemies and regime‑change crusades.

“Can the Iranian Regime Survive?,” Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, 03.06.26.

• Mead recalls that on the eve of Hamas’s 2023 attack, Iran appeared close to regional hegemony, with proxies or allies dominating Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Red Sea, and deepening ties to Russia, China, Venezuela and Sunni Islamists like Hamas and Qatar. He argues that this “Persian Empire” was painstakingly built through intimidation, subversion and ruthless opposition to both Israel and U.S. power—and long impressed even skeptical Western analysts.
•  Since Oct. 7, however, Mead says Tehran has overreached and watched its edifice crumble under Israeli and U.S. blows, leaving surviving leaders “cowering in bunkers” as a broad coalition—including Germany, Canada and even Qatar—turns against them. Iran’s strategy now, he writes, is twofold: wreak enough regional havoc to split neighbors from Washington, and dare the U.S. to choose between tolerating regime survival or launching an unpopular, risky ground invasion to finish the job.
• Mead argues Washington and Jerusalem are responding on three fronts: destroying the regime’s coercive apparatus with precision strikes; encouraging ethnic minority unrest among Kurds, Baloch and possibly Azeris; and probing for an “Iranian Delcy Rodríguez” willing to cut a deal. All carry serious risks—from rallying nationalist support to fragmenting Iran into “warring ministates”—but he concludes that after years of seemingly unstoppable ascent, the mullahs now have their “backs against the wall,” and the coming weeks will determine whether the Islamic Republic endures or collapses.

“UK should not back a war that boosts Vladimir Putin,” Stephen Bush, Financial Times, 03.09.26.

• “Every day the war in Iran goes on, global energy prices increase. This helps President Vladimir Putin in two ways. Firstly, increased energy profits help the Russian economy which helps the Russian war effort, both in its direct, kinetic form in and against Ukraine, and in its indirect form in funding cyber attacks and subversion activities.”
• “Secondly, the increase in energy costs feeds through to everything else, adding to pressure on the cost of living, and therefore increasing the chances that incumbent European governments, which are largely anti-Putin, will be defeated by challenger parties, which are largely pro-Putin.”
• “Our “influence” is a commodity that we want to spend on one thing above all: that Donald Trump not do things that help Putin. Backing the US in doing a thing that supports Putin because we can then use our influence to get him to knock it off . . . no, that doesn’t pass the smell test in my view.”
• See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • "How Russia wins from war in the Middle East," Alexander Kolyandr and Alexandra Prokopenko, The Bell, 03.06.26.
  • “Which leading economies will pay the biggest price for the Iran war?”, Sam Fleming, Amy Borrett & Myles McCormick, Financial Times, 03.09.26. 
  • “America chose this war — and must now choose how to end it”, Richard Haass, Financial Times, 03.08.26.
  • “The Postliberal Superpower: What Abandoning Democratic Allies Will Cost America,” Michael Carpenter, Foreign Affairs, 03.08.26.
  • “Why Escalation Favors Iran: America and Israel May Have Bitten Off More Than They Can Chew,” Robert A. Pape, Foreign Affairs, 03.09.26.
  • “Trump’s Venezuela strategy has failed in Iran,” Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 03.09.26.
  • Podcast: “Vladimir Putin Watches Iran from the Sidelines,” Andrew C. Kuchins and Chris Monday, The National Interest, 03.04.26.
  • “Russian rhetoric on Iran rings hollow as no weapons appear”, Tom Parfitt, The Times (UK), 03.08.26.
  • “There’s Reason to Worry About the Iran War”, Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 03.05.26.
  • “Israeli officials are growing concerned,” David Ignatius, Washington Post, 03.09.26.
  • "Regime change: logic, conditions and limits of external intervention," Boris Bondarev, The Moscow Times, 03.05.26. (In Russian.)
  • "US Anti-Iran Sanctions: A Retrospective, Review of Arbitration and Judicial Practice," Anastasia Sukhotskaya, Anastasia Nikolaeva and Ksenia Rud, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), 03.05.26. (In Russian.)
  • “The Spread of ‘Epic Fury’: The U.S.-Iran War Breaks Out of the Middle East”, Alexander Zhelenin, Republic, 03.08.26. (In Russian.)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

“Keeping Kyiv Warm Under Fire”, Anna Conkling, Foreign Policy, 03.09.26.

• Conkling describes how, four years into Russia’s war, Moscow’s “strategy of attrition now centers on freezing cities into submission,” with January–February 2026 bringing “some of the most sustained assaults” on Kyiv’s heating and power systems since 2022 and “hundreds of thousands” left without heat in subzero temperatures. She notes that after a January 9 barrage, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said that “6,000 residential buildings—nearly half of the capital’s total—lost heat,” and that as of March 2 “1,100 residential apartments in Kyiv still lack heating and are expected to remain without it for the remainder of the heating season,” while crews from DTEK and Ukrainian Railways fight a “relentless cycle of destruction and restoration” under fire.
• The piece stresses that Russia’s bombardment intersects with a domestic corruption scandal that “adds to a political divide in Ukraine at a time when unity is needed most,” after NABU alleged a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector involving officials close to Zelensky and “the country’s biggest electricity producer,” Energoatom. NABU chief Semen Kryvonos writes that war “creates increased corruption risks: quick decisions, large amounts of money, simplified procedures,” and warns that NABU is “the main instrument of Ukrainian society’s demand for justice,” while economist Georg Zachmann cautions the scandal could “hinder international partners from investing in the structural measures needed to stabilize the country,” just as Ukraine is trying to keep the lights on under Russian attack and convince the EU it can meet rule‑of‑law standards.

“On the Road With Zelensky, Weathered, Weary and Fighting On,” Kim Barker and Brendan Hoffman, New York Times, 03.09.26.

• Barker writes that as Ukraine enters the fifth year of full‑scale war, the conflict has already killed “more than 15,000 civilians” and “hundreds of thousands” of soldiers on both sides. On one recent night alone, Russia launched 480 drones and 29 missiles at Ukrainian cities; Ukraine’s air force reported shooting down 453 of those drones and 19 of the missiles.
• Zelensky’s frontline visit took almost 27 hours door‑to‑door, including more than 8 hours by train from Kyiv toward Kharkiv and several more by high‑speed convoy into Donetsk, often at “more than 90 miles an hour” under anti‑drone netting. The Ukrainian‑held part of Donetsk he visited—“slightly larger than the state of Delaware”—still has “nearly 200,000 people” living there, with the front line “no more than 10 miles from Kramatorsk.”

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

"Ukraine is holding its own," Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, Washington Post, 03.04.26. Click on this link to access graphs that accompany this commentary.

• Russian forces currently occupy 19.4% of Ukrainian territory; they peaked at 26.8% shortly after the 2022 full‑scale invasion, before Ukrainian counteroffensives reduced that to about 17.9% by November 2022.
• Since late 2022, Russia has seized only about 1.5% more Ukrainian land—some 9,318 square kilometers—over three and a half years, an area smaller than Lebanon or Los Angeles County, while suffering more than 1 million total casualties.
• Russian weekly gains this year are below their highs from last year. Indeed, Ukraine liberated more land than Russian forces seized the last two weeks of February, according to the authors.
• In the past year alone, Russia incurred roughly 400,000 casualties (killed, wounded, missing) to gain that extra 1.5% of territory, and its weekly gains in 2026 remain below last year’s highs.
• Ukraine has launched localized counterattacks, liberating Kupyansk in Kharkiv oblast in November and retaking tactically important positions in Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk; Ukrainian forces have made net daily gains more often in the last six months than in the previous nine.
• At current rates of advance, estimates suggest Russia would need two to three years to complete the seizure of Donetsk oblast, and it is uncertain it can even sustain that pace as it confronts Ukraine’s fortified “fortress belt” and expanding “wall of drones” defenses.Top of Form

“If Russia Has ‘All the Cards,’ Why Has It Achieved So Little?,” Lawrence Freedman, New York Times, 03.04.26.

• Freedman argues Russia’s invasion has fallen far short of early expectations: after four years, territorial gains are modest, no regional capitals are held, and an estimated 1.2 million Russian casualties belie Trump’s claim that Moscow holds “all the cards.” Initial overreach around Kyiv, multiple axes of advance and overstretched logistics turned a planned short war into a costly stalemate.
• He notes that none of Putin’s core objectives has been met: Ukraine remains independent and now fields one of Europe’s strongest, most battle‑hardened armies, while NATO has expanded and Russia’s economy faces high rates, inflation and minimal growth. Moscow trumpets “successes” like Pokrovsk, but even shattered towns offer ambiguous value as Ukraine builds a fortress belt around key Donbas cities that Russia doubts it can take, even by 2027.
• Freedman stresses that modern battlefield transparency makes large, fast offensives extremely hard, forcing Russia into bloody small‑scale infiltrations, while Ukraine—despite heavy losses and blackouts—largely rejects territorial concessions and aims to impose intolerable costs, targeting 50,000 Russian casualties a month. He concludes that the first step to a durable peace is defeating the narrative of inevitable Russian victory and convincing Moscow that, however much pain it inflicts, it cannot subjugate Ukraine.

“Drones Are the Future of Warfare,” James B. Meigs, Wall Street Journal, 03.05.26.

• Meigs argues that the Iran war underlines a core paradox of modern conflict: ultra‑expensive platforms like carriers and F‑35s project overwhelming power, yet cheap one‑way drones can impose disproportionate costs and strain limited air‑defense stockpiles. He highlights Iran’s Shahed drones—costing under $50,000 versus $2.5 million for a Tomahawk—which can be built in the dozens for the price of a single cruise missile and have already killed U.S. troops in Kuwait. This asymmetry, he says, lets smaller states “with everything to lose” shape the battlefield and forces great powers to rethink how they buy and use high‑end systems.
• According to Meigs, Ukraine shows how a “military backwater” can leapfrog into “the most technologically advanced army in Europe” by embracing drones, AI, and rapid battlefield innovation. He cites estimates that Ukrainian drones account for about 80 percent of Russian combat casualties and have destroyed thousands of armored vehicles, while Russia races to adapt with its own drones and electronic warfare. Echoing Jillian Kay Melchior, he warns that “Russia and Ukraine have shown the world the future of warfare—and America and its allies aren’t ready,” noting war‑games where a 10‑person Ukrainian drone team “mock‑destroyed” a much larger conventional NATO force.
• Meigs contends the U.S. is squandering a strategic opportunity by letting Ukraine aid taper off even as it eagerly absorbs lessons from Israel’s innovations in sensors, software and air‑defense integrations. He argues that MAGA “isolationists” treating support for Kyiv as charity ignore the fact that Russia is developing and sharing cutting‑edge drone tactics with China, while Ukraine is already feeding valuable data and hardware—like captured Shaheds, which helped spawn the U.S. LUCAS kamikaze drone—into the U.S. system. To stay ahead, he urges Washington to keep weapons flowing to Ukraine, systematically mine combat performance data, and deepen ties between U.S. contractors and Ukraine’s “lightning‑fast tech innovators.”

“Thousands of Africans are fighting for Russia in Ukraine,” The Economist, 03.05.26.

• The article recounts how young Africans are lured to Russia by agencies promising “a civilian job…free flights and visa, plus a sign-on bonus,” only to be confronted, as Kenyan Vincent Odhiambo recalls, with a choice between signing a Russian army contract or paying an unaffordable sum to leave. Many, the piece notes, were given “only a week’s training” before being sent to the front; one Kenyan video of soldiers “slowly, half-heartedly” dancing is followed by their near-total annihilation. Ghana’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, complains that Russia is “going all out in taking advantage of people who are looking for jobs and greener pastures,” while a Ukrainian official urges coerced Africans to surrender, insisting, “We treat them as victims of Putin’s regime.”
• Russia is resorting to African recruits because, as Ukrainian analyst Oleh Bielokolos argues, it is “really difficult…to find additional men” without general mobilization, amid record desertion and shocking casualty rates—one estimate has “as many as 42% of foreign fighters” killed within four months. African governments are now closing recruitment agencies and lobbying for prisoners’ release; Ablakwa speaks of building an “international coalition of the willing” against trafficking. At the same time, the article reports that Russia has quietly drafted a list of “friendly” states where recruiters are formally barred, suggesting, the authors argue, that the Kremlin fears African deaths in Ukraine could erode the pro-Russian sentiment it has cultivated on the continent.

Infographic: “How Russia’s War on Ukraine Changed Russian Military Medicine: Preliminary Lessons Learned,” Gabriela Iveliz Rosa Hernandez and Kara Mandell, CNA, March 2026.

• “Russian military medical lessons learned are valuable to DOW medical planners because Russian medical forces modeled their roles of care and wounding classification on NATO standards and use tactical combat casualty care for point-of-injury care. The utilization of these conventions makes comparisons to US capabilities and concepts of employment possible,” the authors write.
• “Russian forces face a similar problem set to those that US forces are likely to face in a peer conflict—long lines of supply to support a large, dispersed force in unfamiliar territory with a potentially unfriendly civilian populace,” according to the authors.
• “Studying Russian innovation and lessons learned can help DOW military planners identify measures that would allow the US to rapidly adapt its capacity to treat the wounded,” the authors advise.
• Key takeaways:
  • “Medical care must change to reflect tactical realities and resources; medical command & control, and force generation processes must promote flexibility and disseminate changing clinical practice guidance.”
  • “With limited abilities to evacuate casualties and patients, the character of medical care and triage must change.”
  • “Unmanned casualty evacuation requires operational protection in a conflict with drone warfare and contested logistics.”
  • “With extended holding at the point of care, many critically injured patients will not survive to higher levels of care or first surgical intervention. While those who survive have lower injury severity scores, they still require resource-intensive care and multiple surgeries.”
• See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • “Missiles made in Ukraine are bringing Putin’s invasion home to Russia”, Peter Dickinson, Atlantic Council, 03.08.26.

Military aid to Ukraine:

“Iran war could save Vladimir Putin’s failing Ukraine invasion,” Peter Dickinson, Atlantic Council, 03.05.26.

• Dickinson argues that, by most measures, “Putin has failed” in Ukraine—he has not “demilitarized” or “denazified” the country, instead facing “Europe’s largest army” and a Ukraine that is now “a world leader in drone warfare.” Yet the Iran war “could hardly have come at a better time” for Moscow: with Hormuz under threat, “Russia stands to benefit more than most from rising oil and gas prices,” potentially reinvigorating “Putin’s war economy at a time when it was beginning to show signs of serious strain.” He warns that unprecedented Patriot use against Iran “could leave large parts of Ukraine unlivable” if Kyiv loses air defenses, and that a protracted conflict will “strengthen Russia economically while weakening Ukraine’s ability to defend itself,” thereby prolonging “Europe’s largest invasion since World War II.”

“Russia Is Big Winner as Iran War Drains Supplies That Ukraine Needs,” Bojan Pancevski and Drew Hinshaw, Wall Street Journal, 03.04.26.

• Pancevski and Hinshaw report that Iran’s missile and drone barrages are rapidly depleting Patriot interceptor stocks just as Ukraine faces intense Russian ballistic strikes, making Moscow “one of the biggest winners” of the Iran war. Even before this campaign, production bottlenecks had “drained Ukraine’s reserves” and left European allies on years-long waiting lists, enabling devastating Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and cities.
• The authors note that Ukraine’s air force says it needs at least 60 PAC‑3 interceptors a month to keep pace with Russian ballistic missiles, but only five have been definitively pledged so far, all from Germany. With Russia producing about 80 ballistic missiles monthly and hundreds of Shahed‑type drones, negotiators warn that interceptor shortages directly threaten Western security guarantees and could weaken Kyiv’s hand in any peace talks.
• Pancevski and Hinshaw stress that Patriot production—about 600 interceptors a year, with plans for 2,000 only by 2030—lags far behind demand, while industry hesitates to invest without long-term contracts. Experts like Michael Kofman and Fabian Hoffmann say this “doesn’t bode well” for Ukraine as Russia, China and Iran pursue doctrines built on saturating thin stockpiles, exposing what former German official Nico Lange calls a major Western error: four lost years to scale up ground-based air defenses.

“From Tehran to Donbas: What the Iran War Means for Russia and Ukraine,” Robert Person, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 03.06.26.

• Person argues the Iran war immediately worsens Ukraine’s air-defense crunch: Patriots are the only widely deployed Western system that can reliably stop Russian ballistic missiles, yet Gulf states and Israel are now firing scarce, million‑dollar interceptors at Iranian missiles and Shahed‑type drones. Every battery tied down over Riyadh or Abu Dhabi and every interceptor used there is one less for Odesa or Kharkiv as Russia ramps up mixed salvos of ballistic and one‑way attack drones.
• He notes that Russia won’t face a drone squeeze of its own, because with Iranian help it built domestic Shahed‑derivative production lines that no longer depend heavily on fresh Iranian deliveries. At the same time, the war has sent Brent and Urals prices well above the levels assumed in Russia’s 2026 budget and pushed Asian buyers shut out of Gulf oil toward discounted Russian barrels, potentially giving Moscow the “adrenaline shot” it needs to escape a looming fiscal “death zone” and keep fighting longer.
• Diplomatically, Person warns that a new Middle East crisis pulls U.S. and European attention away from Ukraine, stalls already fraught talks, and deepens a “mutual distraction” problem just as the war enters a decisive phase. He argues that if Western leaders don’t consciously prioritize Ukraine’s Patriot needs, tighten sanctions to blunt Russia’s oil windfall, and amplify Zelensky’s effort to cast Ukraine as a security provider, the Iran war will become an unintended “gift” to the Kremlin—refilling its coffers while sapping Western focus and resolve.

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

•  No significant developments.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

“Iran war gives Russia the upper hand over Ukraine,” Anatol Lieven, UnHerd, 03.05.26.

• Lieven writes that Zelensky is “correct” to warn that US‑Israeli strikes on Iran could tilt the war “in Russia’s favor,” noting CNN reports that the Pentagon is already “diverting anti‑drone technology supplies from Ukraine to US forces in the Middle East.” If Iran keeps “blocking the Strait of Hormuz” and hitting Gulf energy infrastructure, he argues, global energy turmoil and “a new energy crisis in Europe” will follow, empowering Moscow. With “oil prices… already risen over 10%,” he says Russia will gain as “countries around the world will have no choice but to buy from Russia,” while India’s drift away from Russian crude and Western efforts to seize the “shadow fleet” are “now almost certainly over.”
• In his view, hopes that “economic stress and inflation in Russia would undermine the Kremlin’s will” are now “empty,” and if Ukrainian defenses “visibly and rapidly” weaken, “Russian hardliners… will be enormously strengthened, and Putin may lose any willingness to compromise.” Lieven concludes that “events in Iran should force European leaders to the negotiating table,” insisting that, for Europe’s own sake, the EU must be ready to offer “an end to sanctions and openness to Russian energy as part of a settlement” if it wants “a peace settlement which preserves an independent Ukraine in control of more than three‑quarters of its territory.”

“Is Ukraine peace toast, now that the Middle East is on fire?”, Jennifer Kavanagh, Responsible Statecraft, 03.09.26.

• Kavanagh writes that Trump’s Iran war “deals a double blow” to his peacemaker ambitions, arguing it “will…prolong the fighting and make it harder to reach a ceasefire” in Ukraine by weakening U.S. leverage and giving “both Kyiv and Moscow incentives to slow-walk diplomatic efforts.” She notes that the administration’s earlier strategy of “slowly squeezing Russia’s oil revenues” through sanctions, pressure on India, and a crackdown on the shadow fleet has been reversed, as Treasury now “allow[s] (even encourage[s]) India to resume purchases of Russian oil for 30 days without penalty,” handing Moscow a short‑term windfall.
• On the military side, she warns that “rapid expenditure of U.S. air defense and munitions against Iran will drain stockpiles and reduce what is available to support Ukraine’s self-defense,” particularly the interceptors on which Kyiv still depends. If those shipments dwindle, she says, it will “leave Ukraine’s civilian and industrial infrastructure vulnerable,” potentially strengthening Putin’s hand as he “may be willing to wait and see” whether mounting damage pushes Kyiv toward bigger concessions.
• Most seriously, Kavanagh argues that U.S. credibility as mediator has been “fatally” damaged, noting that “twice now, in June 2025 and last week, the United States has attacked Iran during negotiations,” leading some diplomats to suggest the talks were “a sham, meant as a distraction.” She concludes that with “no confidence that talks will address their underlying security concerns or lead to a durable armistice,” both Russia and Ukraine are likely to “choose continued war,” and that if Trump is serious about ending it, his team must now focus on how to “rebuild Washington’s credibility as a negotiator and diplomatic broker.”

“Five Reasons for Ukraine to Give Up Donbas,” Ted Snider, The American Conservative, 03.06.26.

• Snider contends it is “misleading” to claim Putin “has not made compromises and is unwilling to negotiate,” arguing that Moscow has granted “large security concessions” (accepting EU membership, higher force caps, “robust security guarantees” short of NATO troops) and even “possible compromises on the postwar borders,” while drawing a red line that there can be “no compromise on the entirety of Donbas and Crimea being part of Russia.” He calls that demand “unfair” and illegal under the UN Charter but insists that “little in war is fair,” framing the choice starkly: “Ukraine can cede Donbas to Russia diplomatically, or they can lose Donbas to Russia by war. The outcome is inevitable; the choice is real,” given that “the loss of Ukrainian lives is horrific and unsustainable.”
• He then lays out five “practical reasons” for ceding all of Donbas despite the injustice: (1) to “end this war,” since meeting Russia’s “nonnegotiable” goal of incorporating Donbas could be “part of the key” to stopping the killing; (2) because, in his view, Donbas will be lost anyway, and it is “better to lose it with no more loss of life if possible”; (3) because a border “drawn at the west of Donbas makes ethnic and historical sense,” reflecting Ukraine’s east–west split and “the will of the people as expressed in multiple referendums,” and might “prevent Ukraine from slipping back into civil war”; (4) because removing “the disputed territory of the Donbas and Crimea” from Ukraine would reduce Moscow’s perceived casus belli and thus “go some distance” toward providing real security guarantees; and (5) because a Ukraine on “80 percent of its original territory integrated with the West” could plausibly be “sold…as a victory,” easing EU‑accession demands on minority rights and helping avoid renewed “internal strife,” while de jure recognition now would “help prevent the stage being set for future battles” over a Donbas only de facto under Russian control.

“What the Iran war means for Ukraine”, Tim Ross et al., Politico Europe, 03.03.26.

• Ross and co-authors say Europeans fear that as “Trump’s ongoing operation against Iran takes priority,” he will “lose interest in ending Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine,” while the Middle East conflict may “starve” Kyiv of U.S.-made missiles because “you’re going to fire off a lot of kit and equipment into the region, you’re not going to have the spares on the shelf,” as RUSI’s Ed Arnold warns. Zelenskyy told reporters that for Ukrainians “this is our life — the appropriate weapons,” and that “if there are long-term hostilities in the Middle East, this will certainly affect the supply. I am sure of this,” even as a European official admits that “a lot of firepower including interceptor and other missiles have been expended” and that the U.S. “needs to restock, meaning there is less for Europe or Ukraine to buy.”
• The piece describes a broader political risk that Ukraine becomes a “forgotten war” as Trump, who once said the conflict “should have remained a European situation,” threatens to “back away” from peace efforts and publicly snaps that Zelenskyy “has to get on the ball, and he has to get a deal done,” adding, “You don’t have the cards. Now he’s got even less cards.” Meanwhile, EU support is also wobbling: an accession meeting in Cyprus was postponed after an Iranian drone strike, and a diplomat warns “it’s important not to lose the momentum,” even as Ukraine faces a looming budget gap after the EU “failed to reach a deal” on frozen assets and a €90 billion loan. Some Ukrainians still see “certain pluses” in the Iran war, with MP Oleksandr Merezhko arguing that Kyiv and Washington are fighting “the entire axis of evil,” but another diplomat sums up the core concern: “Before the war against Iran — the Americans were already showing less interest and losing patience with Ukraine.”

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

• “Fallout From Mideast Swirls Over the War in Ukraine,” Cassandra Vinograd, New York Times, 03.05.26.

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

“How the Iran War Might Impact Russia-Ukraine,” Sam Skove, Foreign Policy, 03.05.26.

•  Skove reports that the most visible immediate effect of the Iran war was the scramble to relocate Russia‑Ukraine talks from Abu Dhabi after Iranian attacks, but the deeper danger is munitions: the same Patriot interceptors and other high‑end missiles Ukraine needs are being consumed over the Gulf. Officials in Europe and on Capitol Hill doubt Washington can sustain both theaters, and Zelensky himself has warned that a prolonged Iran fight will inevitably cut into Ukraine’s air‑defense supplies.
• At the same time, he notes, the conflict has unexpectedly increased Kyiv’s leverage by making its hard‑won expertise against Shahed drones newly valuable to Washington and Gulf partners. Ukraine is already sending specialists and systems to help counter Iranian drones, potentially reducing Gulf reliance on Patriots; Zelensky pointedly framed this as help for “partners who help ensure our security,” a reminder that Kyiv expects concrete returns. Yet Skove cautions that Ukraine’s own interceptor needs limit how far this “drone diplomacy” can go in practice.
• Skove also explores how Iran might reshape Trump’s calculus on Ukraine: strong results could embolden him to squeeze Moscow harder, but a quagmire could push him to seek a “win” by forcing a quick Ukraine deal on Russian terms. Trump has renewed public jabs at Zelensky—telling him to “get a deal done” and repeating “you don’t have the cards”—even as Kyiv courts Trump world through critical‑minerals and LNG deals, religious outreach, and Melania Trump’s focus on deported Ukrainian children. Analysts doubt those cards significantly move Trump himself, leaving Ukraine exposed to swings in his Iran‑driven mood.

“As Trump Out-Putins Putin, Russia’s Global Influence Erodes,” Paul Sonne, New York Times, 03.06.26.

• Sonne writes that while the Iran war brings Putin short‑term gains—higher oil and gas prices, new energy leverage, and pressure on U.S. air‑defense supplies to Ukraine—it simultaneously exposes “the limits” of Russia’s partnerships, as Moscow stands aside while Trump helps topple or squeeze friendly regimes in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba with little more than mild, Trump‑avoiding condemnations.
• He argues that Trump’s willingness to kill or capture foreign leaders and disregard traditional norms has “flipped the script” on Putin, long seen as the master of risk and coercive power. Analysts like Angela Stent and Bobo Lo say Russia’s inaction shows partners the emptiness of its security guarantees and leaves Putin looking “a little bit pathetic” next to a U.S. president now seen as “the baddest guy in town.”
• Sonne notes that Putin is playing a longer game, hoping Trump’s disinterest in “democracy building” will let Moscow preserve ties with surviving elites and extract concessions on Ukraine, which remains his top priority. He highlights how Trump’s Oval Office humiliation of Zelensky, attacks on USAID and RFE/RL, and even threats to seize Greenland have delighted the Kremlin, as Trump continues to tell Ukraine’s president, not Putin, “You don’t have the cards.”

"The Great Liquidation: Russia’s Great Imperial Retreat," Maksym Beznosiuk and William Dixon, RUSI, 03.03.26.

• The authors argue Russia is undergoing “imperial overstretch”: its resources are so consumed by the assault on Kyiv and the wider war in Ukraine that it is liquidating distant positions to preserve core objectives.
• Tehran’s desperate appeals for Russian military help during massive U.S.-Israeli strikes—and Moscow’s refusal even to activate S-400 and EW systems in Syria—expose the hollowness of the Moscow–Tehran “axis” after years of one‑way extraction of Iranian drones, missiles, and technology.
• Russia’s rapid withdrawal from Qamishli and contraction to Hmeimim signal the functional end of its role as a Syrian power broker and sever key logistical arteries for Africa Corps, leaving Moscow’s security model in the Sahel as “a fragmented shadow.”
• The authors warn that Russia can still win tactical victories in Ukraine while suffering strategic imperial collapse; in the volatile final stage of overstretch, the Kremlin is concentrating on total attritional war in Ukraine plus low‑cost hybrid operations across Europe.
• They argue this creates a finite 18–24 month window for Europe and the U.S. to lock in gains—especially in the Balkans and parts of the former Russian periphery—before China or chaos fill the vacuum, as Russia “liquidates” its empire to afford Ukraine.

“At last, the credibility of U.S. deterrence is being restored,” George F. Will, Washington Post, 03.06.26.

• Will argues that the U.S.–Israeli decapitation strike on Iran’s regime marks “one of history’s most spectacular backfires” for Tehran and its proxies, turning their long campaign against Israel and America into a disaster that has “magnified Israel’s security” and brought a regime built on “Death to America” close to death itself through precise daylight attacks enabled by first‑rate intelligence.
• He contends that toppling Iran’s rulers is a necessary step in restoring U.S. deterrence after earlier “nadir” moments: Saigon in 1975, Obama’s unenforced red line on Syrian chemical weapons, and Biden’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal. Will dismisses the “war of choice” framing, arguing Trump’s team refused to gamble U.S. safety on Iran abandoning its nuclear quest or not acting on its genocidal rhetoric.
• Will insists mere “decapitation” is insufficient in Iran, whose theocratic regime, he says, loathed not just modernity but “humanity,” warring against the nation rather than embodying it. He argues that Iran’s deep pre‑1979 cultural identity and young population make democratic rebirth possible, and urges the United States to back Iran’s transformation from a distance with “bold thoroughness,” quoting Robert Frost: “The best way out is always through.”

"In a World Order Defined by Trump, the Key to Europe’s Defense Is Germany," Elisabeth Zerofsky, New York Times, 03.03.26.

• Zerofsky argues that Trump’s unilateral strike on Iran, his threat to “take Greenland,” and open contempt for Europe have convinced European leaders they must “speak the language of power politics” and reduce dependence on a U.S. that now treats them more as adversaries than allies.
• Germany, as Europe’s largest economy, is pivotal: it is becoming a top NATO funder, could soon have the strongest conventional army in the EU, and is central to arming Ukraine against Russia, yet faces public aversion to fighting and deep structural limits on intelligence and military deployments.
• The piece details Europe’s industrial and financial bottlenecks—fragmented defense industries, stalled joint projects like the Franco‑Spanish‑German FCAS fighter, a bias toward tanks and legacy platforms instead of cheap drones and other Ukrainian‑style innovations, and chronic reliance on U.S. software and R&D.
• Economic and political strains—U.S. tariffs, weakening Chinese demand, and a far‑right AfD that mixes pro‑Russia sentiment, skepticism about supporting Ukraine, and flirtation with Carl Schmitt–style “great space” spheres of influence—complicate Chancellor Merz’s effort to rebuild German power within a rules‑based framework.
• Zerofsky contrasts Trump‑Rubio’s civilizational, “America prepared to do this alone” rhetoric with Merz’s insistence that German and European strength must remain embedded in alliances, law, and mutual restraint—even as Europe scrambles to rearm, secure Ukraine against Russia, and hedge against further U.S. unilateralism.

"Europe, Uninvited and Unconsulted, Sits By," Mark Landler, New York Times, 03.03.26.

• Landler describes how Trump’s Iran war has relegated Europe to the sidelines: allies were neither consulted nor meaningfully involved, producing a patchwork of reactions from guarded approval to outright rejection of the strikes.
• Leaders such as Germany’s Friedrich Merz and France’s Emmanuel Macron tacitly accept some U.S. goals (stopping Iran’s nukes and missiles, welcoming Khamenei’s death) while insisting their overriding priority remains defending Ukraine against Russia.
• Analysts warn this exposes Europe’s incoherence: it claims to defend a liberal order but struggles to reconcile support for U.S./Israeli bombing with demands that Russia respect rules and borders in Ukraine, weakening its moral and political position.
• Britain allows limited use of its bases for “defensive” strikes even as a drone hits an RAF base in Cyprus, while Macron showcases French action against Russian oil tankers and plans a speech on nuclear deterrence to underline Europe’s need for its own hard power.
• Landler notes that Trump’s unilateralism benefits leaders like Netanyahu, Putin and Xi: Russia can cite U.S. regime‑change adventures to justify aggression in Ukraine, while Europeans fear that acquiescing now could embolden Trump to revive designs on Greenland or other disruptive moves closer to home.

“Shadow Boxing With the Kremlin,” Edward Lucas, Foreign Policy, 03.06.26.

•  Lucas reviews former CIA officer Sean Wiswesser’s book “Tradecraft, Tactics and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War,” which aims “to damage RIS capabilities” by exposing how Russian intelligence really works. He describes a brisk, jargon-rich guide to spycraft that portrays Russian services as abusive, corrupt, and often incompetent—more focused on faked sources, padded expenses, and shoddy “illegals” like Anna Chapman than on the formidable sleeper agents of Soviet legend.
• Despite this mediocrity, Lucas emphasizes Wiswesser’s warning that Russia still devotes vast resources to intelligence and retains serious capabilities: a huge nuclear arsenal, a military that can still menace Europe, and a track record of damaging penetrations and operations, from Herman Simm and Wirecard to the Skripal poisoning and GRU sabotage cells in Europe. He highlights Russia’s use of “disposable” proxies and gray‑zone tools—cyber, disinformation, low‑level violence—to erode Western security below the threshold of open war.
•  Lucas notes Wiswesser’s criticism of Western services that have underinvested in deep language and cultural expertise and long ignored warnings from Russia’s neighbors about Kremlin revanchism. The book’s core message, he writes, is that Russian intelligence and the kleptocratic system behind it are “a soft target” if Western agencies are willing to take more risks and work harder—steps Wiswesser believes would both improve security and hasten the eventual collapse of Putin’s corrupt regime.

“The Iron Curtain returns, but from the other side”, Fyodor Lukyanov, RT, 03.05.26. Clues from Russian Views. (RT is associated with the Russian authorities.)

•  Lukyanov recalls Churchill’s 1946 Fulton speech and argues that “a new kind of curtain has once again descended across Europe, although this time it is drawn from the opposite side”: whereas “during the Cold War, the Soviet Union sealed off its ideological and geopolitical sphere from the West,” today “it is the Western world that is increasingly isolating Russia.” He notes that Churchill’s goal was “containment” rather than destruction of the USSR and that the Cold War produced the “Long Peace,” a relatively stable balance in which the Soviet Union was treated “not an anomaly that could be eliminated but an essential element of the global balance,” something he says Western leaders have since forgotten.
• Drawing on George Kennan’s later criticism, Lukyanov argues that after the Cold War “the disappearance of a rival power did not bring lasting stability” but instead “removed the equilibrium that had structured international politics for decades,” while NATO expansion and the Iraq war showed how the “political culture that emphasized prudence and long-term thinking” had faded. He writes that attempts like Joe Biden’s to revive “a simplified Cold War framework” of democracies versus autocracies “failed to restore order,” and that the liberal order has become “more pragmatic and transactional,” with even its supposed leaders “no longer seem[ing] certain where it is heading.” The new “curtains” descending today, he concludes, each “promise security while concealing uncertainty behind it,” and whereas in 1946 there was at least “one universal conviction: such a catastrophe must never be repeated,” “today, even that certainty appears less secure than it once did.”
• See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • “Why Trump won’t clean up his own mess. Chaos and instability are a feature, not a bug, of the US president’s approach to foreign policy,” Gillian Tett, Financial Times, 03.06.26.
  • “Donald Trump Must Stop Soon,” The Economist, 03.05.26.
  • “The Case Against Trump’s War of Choice in Iran,” Steve Bonitatibus, Center for American Progress, 03.05.26.
  • "Europe Against Russia Without the US? Not Europe’s Preference but Possible," Karl-Heinz Kamp, German Council on Foreign Relations, 03.04.26.
  • "Greenland, the United States and Arctic security: Towards a credible and principled Transatlantic response," Federica Dall’Arche, Alexandra Filippenko, Gabriella Gricius, Henrik Larsen and Nikita Gryazin, European Leadership Network, 03.09.26.

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“There are two winners in Iran. Neither one is America,” Max Boot, Washington Post, 03.09.26.

• Boot argues that the Iran war is directly benefiting Russia: oil has jumped from about $73 a barrel pre‑war to “over $100” (a roughly 35–40% rise), and Trump has relaxed sanctions so India can buy more Russian crude, helping “bankroll the Russian war machine.” He notes that in just three days of fighting with Iran, more Patriot interceptors were fired than Ukraine has used “since 2022,” and that U.S. gasoline prices rose 14% in a week, all while limited U.S. stockpiles of long‑range missiles and air‑defense interceptors — also needed for Ukraine — are being burned down.
• He contends China is the other winner: while Washington spends “tens of billions of dollars” on a Middle East war of choice, Beijing is investing to dominate key sectors, already leading the U.S. in research on 66 of 74 “frontier technologies” and manufacturing about 70% of the world’s EVs, 80% of smartphones, 80% of lithium‑ion batteries, and 90% of drones. Citing the Pentagon, Boot points out that China is steadily moving toward Xi Jinping’s goal of being able to “fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027,” with the world’s largest navy and rapidly expanding ballistic missile and nuclear forces, while U.S. attention and resources are tied down in Iran.

“Funding war, courting crisis: Why China’s support for Russia requires a European response,” Evelyn Yeh, ECFR, 03.09.26.

• Yeh argues that since the invasion of Ukraine, China has become “a key enabler of the war machine,” supplying around 66% of Russia’s dual‑use imports by 2023 and an estimated 80% of components used in Russian weapons production, while soaking up Russian energy exports. In return, Moscow has shifted from “low‑profile pragmatism” on Taiwan to an explicit quid pro quo: public, “consistent and unwavering support” for Beijing’s “One China” line and its effort to miscast UNGA Resolution 2758 as recognizing Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, a “political rent” Russia pays to keep Chinese material and financial support flowing and to bolster Beijing’s lawfare against the Taiwan Strait’s international status.
• She contends this Sino‑Russian “strategic exchange” both prolongs the war in Ukraine and shapes the strategic environment around Taiwan, “coupling” European and Indo‑Pacific security and testing Western crisis response. Yeh urges Europe to move from rhetoric to action: explicitly clarify that Resolution 2758 does not determine Taiwan’s status; conduct coordinated naval transits to keep the Taiwan Strait a “functional international waterway”; tighten sanctions on Chinese firms and Russia’s shadow fleet financing the war; and fully use EU anti‑circumvention tools to choke off re‑exports of high‑priority dual‑use items. If left unchallenged, she warns, the alignment will “fuel the war machine on Europe’s borders and invite future aggression against Taiwan,” undermining the rules‑based order that underpins European security and prosperity.

"Why China Is Doing So Little to Help a Friend Under Fire," Austin Ramzy, Wall Street Journal, 03.03.26.

• As the U.S. and Israel wage war on Iran, Beijing offers sharp rhetoric but avoids concrete support, seeking to present itself as a defender of international order while staying out of a costly Middle East conflict and preserving options with whoever rules Iran next.
• China’s caution reflects competing interests: it relies heavily on Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, has invested far more there than in Iran, and doesn’t want to endanger those ties or see war spill over in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy chokepoint.
• The war exposes the limits of Xi Jinping’s bid to build an anti‑U.S. coalition: memberships in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have provided Iran little real security, and analysts say this shows “China won’t be there if you need them.”
• China, Iran, Russia and North Korea have been dubbed the informal “Crink” group resisting U.S. power, and there is some cooperation—China and North Korea have aided Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, and Russia uses Iran’s Shahed‑style drones against Ukrainian targets—but collective support for Iran now is minimal.
• Beijing also sees upside: the campaign strains U.S. munitions and attention away from Asia while giving China a view of U.S. capabilities; at the same time, China has spent years insulating itself from oil shocks via strategic reserves and a push toward electric vehicles and lower oil dependence.

“Iran Has Friends, but Where Are They Now?” Ben Hubbard, New York Times, 03.05.26. 

• Hubbard writes that although Iran cultivated ties with Turkey, India, China, Russia and fellow U.S. adversaries like North Korea and Venezuela, these relationships are proving largely rhetorical now that Tehran is under U.S.–Israeli attack. Its main instruments of influence—proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and Iraqi militias—are either depleted or incapable of changing the course of a war fought on Iranian soil. 
• He shows that key partners are balancing or hedging rather than backing Iran militarily. Turkey, sharing a long border and “grudging respect,” condemned the strikes as illegal but welcomed NATO intercepts of an Iranian missile apparently headed toward Incirlik Air Base, fearing spillover more than Tehran’s fate. India treats Iran as a transactional partner for trade and the Chabahar port, but is also Israel’s largest arms customer and avoids “other people’s business.” 
• Hubbard notes that even Iran’s closest great‑power friends are cautious. China, which buys most of Iran’s discounted oil, has criticized Khamenei’s killing and appointed a mediator but won’t risk its fragile détente with Washington. Russia, deeply intertwined with Iran in Syria and Ukraine and bound by a 20‑year cooperation treaty, is limiting itself to diplomatic cover and modest arms transfers, avoiding any clash with Israel or the United States—“defending the Iranians” at the U.N., but offering little concrete help.

“Will China Overplay Its Hand?” Thomas J. Christensen, Foreign Affairs, 03.06.26.

• Christensen argues that Beijing’s elites have drawn an inflated lesson from the 2025 Busan truce, seeing it as proof China can face the United States as an “equal great power” and forced Trump into a “G‑2” relationship. He counters that U.S. advantages in alliances, global power projection, economic leverage, and dollar dominance still leave China far from being a true peer.
•  He warns that this overconfidence is already producing a 2010‑style assertive turn: sanctions on Japan, more threatening exercises around Taiwan, expanded presence in the South China Sea, and construction inside South Korea’s exclusive economic zone. With Trump likely to pressure Beijing over its support for Russia and Iran and to squeeze Chinese influence in Latin America, he sees rising risk that China will answer with escalatory economic coercion.
• Christensen notes that the Busan truce papered over core disputes—transshipment tariffs, rare earths, fentanyl precursors, and advanced chips—and left the Taiwan issue untouched, even as a large new U.S. arms package looms. He argues that mismatched expectations on tech exports and sanctions, plus enduring disagreements over Taiwan, could quickly unravel the détente and tempt a more self‑assured Beijing to overplay its hand, destabilizing U.S.–Chinese relations.

“A Loose Band of Emerging Powers Is Divided Over Iran,” Ana Ionova, New York Times, 03.08.26.

• Ionova notes that BRICS, founded in 2009, now includes five original members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) plus five new ones (Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, UAE), but issued no joint statement after the February 28 U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran. Instead, Brazil, China, and Russia “swiftly condemned” the attacks, India (this year’s chair) stayed silent on the bombing while criticizing Iranian retaliation, and South Africa offered only vague concern—underscoring that “the group is not united at all,” as former BRICS bank vice president Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. puts it.
• The piece recalls that when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, BRICS could not even agree whether Moscow had violated international law, eventually settling for a “lukewarm” declaration urging dialogue and criticizing Western sanctions; a similar, modest statement followed U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran last spring that expressed “grave concern” but did not explicitly condemn Washington or Jerusalem. Now, even with a BRICS member under direct attack and another (the UAE) being hit by Iranian drones and missiles, the bloc has opted for silence, revealing how far it is from the kind of political or security alignment needed to “build a new world order.”
• Ionova highlights that intra‑BRICS trade and energy interests are highly exposed to the conflict: Iranian strikes have hit the Emirates, and attacks around the Gulf have “paralyzed one of the world’s most important trade corridors,” threatening the energy security of oil‑importing members such as China and India. India has “quietly obeyed American demands” to stop buying Iranian oil and has moved to cut Russian crude imports as well, even walking away from a planned Iranian port project, prompting Batista to warn that “it’s geopolitics invading trade relations” and that BRICS cannot stay just an economic club if it hopes to challenge Western influence.
• See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • "Why China Won’t Help Iran: Beijing Cares About the Oil, Not the Regime," Yun Sun, Foreign Affairs, 03.05.26.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

"A New Era: Space After New START," Sam Wilson, CSIS, 03.02.26.

• Wilson argues that with New START’s expiry and Russia having “violated nearly every arms control agreement to which it has been a party,” any new U.S.–Russia strategic treaty is “a remote one for the remainder of Putin’s time in office.” Even setting politics aside, he notes that Russia’s “exotic strategic systems,” its edge in non‑strategic nuclear weapons, and Moscow’s demand to include the U.K. and France—alongside Washington’s insistence that China must join—make a successor agreement highly unlikely.
• For space, he stresses that “while you may not be interested in arms control, arms control is interested in you,” because Russia’s “consistent position” is that any future framework must cover “all factors affecting strategic stability, including missile defense and space.” Without a new deal, the United States may have to pour more of its defense budget into nuclear deterrence to counter both Russia and China, squeezing funding for other missions—including space programs that underpin U.S. and allied operations against Russia in Ukraine.
• Wilson highlights that, in lieu of treaties, Washington may need to rely more on bilateral space-security exchanges with both Beijing and Moscow. He cites a 2025 ODNI warning that “Russia is developing a new satellite meant to carry a nuclear weapon as an antisatellite capability,” and notes that New START’s demise also removes the mutual pledge “not to interfere with the national technical means of verification,” raising the risk Russia could threaten U.S. spy and warning satellites and force a response with knock-on effects for China. 

“Suddenly, the ‘nuclear age’ is today,” James Carden, Responsible Statecraft, 03.09.26.

• Carden argues that decades after Hiroshima and the Reagan–Gorbachev pledge that “a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought,” leaders have “torn up a series of arms control measures,” listing U.S. exits from ABM, INF, and Open Skies and Russia’s withdrawal from CFE and suspension of New START. He warns of an “epidemic of loose talk about the use of nuclear weapons,” noting that while “the Russians have been the worst offenders,” some U.S. analysts show a “blithe disregard” for Putin’s threats; Brown University’s Vladimir Golstein cautions that “knowing Russians, I am extremely certain that they would respond. Sooner or later, but they would.”
• He highlights Dmitry Medvedev’s reaction to Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski’s claim that the U.S. warned Moscow any nuclear detonation in Ukraine would trigger massive conventional strikes: Medvedev said “Americans hitting our targets means starting a world war,” and threatened that if U.S. nuclear weapons were deployed in Poland, “Warsaw won’t be left out, and will surely get its share of radioactive ash.” Carden also cites Kremlin adviser Sergei Karaganov’s article calling for “limited nuclear strikes on Western Europe,” which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says raises “profound questions about whether Russia might attempt to conduct a so-called limited nuclear war,” and concludes that “the nuclear age is not past. It is our present,” urging citizen pressure on Congress to “back us away from the brink and eliminate nuclear weapons once and for all.”

“Is Russia Changing its Nuclear Doctrine to Affect its War in Ukraine?” Dennis S. Nelson, RealClearDefense, 03.09.26.

• Nelson reviews Russian writings arguing that Moscow must shift from “traditional, defensive deterrence” to “offensive intimidation” to repair the losses of its “deep strategic forward” after the Soviet collapse, including Ukraine. He cites Trenin, Avakyants, and Karaganov’s 2024 call for a doctrine that is “not… passive, but active, even proactive, in order to ‘expel/roll back the malign adversarial presence from regions critical to Russia’s security,’” and notes Col. A.A. Bartosh’s distinction that defensive deterrence aims to “prevent enemy action” by denying escalation dominance, whereas offensive deterrence seeks to “coerce enemy action, by establishing one’s own escalation dominance.”
• Nelson concludes that even if Russia is trying to use nuclear saber‑rattling to coerce a favorable outcome in Ukraine, “the U.S. and NATO have ample nuclear and conventional forces to oppose this,” pointing out that Washington, the U.K., and France are all enhancing theater‑nuclear options. He emphasizes that Russia cannot be sure a nuclear strike on Ukraine would not trigger massive conventional retaliation, arguing that back‑channel messages have warned of “severe conventional retaliation, to include the introduction of NATO forces in Ukraine and a massive conventional attack on Crimea,” and adds that Trump’s unexpectedly “more militarily assertive” presidency and the display of U.S. conventional power in Operation Epic Fury “should serve as a serious warning to Russia” against assuming the West would simply back down.

“Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman on France’s decision to increase its nuclear arsenal,” Russian Foreign Ministry, 03.04.26. Clues from Russian views.

• The Russian Foreign Ministry condemns President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to expand France’s nuclear arsenal as a “non‑transparent” and “extremely destabilizing” step that fits a broader NATO trend of reinforcing nuclear capabilities against Russia. It links France’s move to the U.K.’s earlier expansion and access to newly deployed U.S. nuclear bombs, arguing that combined U.S., British and French activities amount to a de facto build‑out of a coordinated European nuclear deterrent within NATO structures.
• Moscow warns that NATO nuclear‑sharing practices, the possible forward movement of U.S. nuclear assets toward Russia’s borders, and talk in London and Paris of involving non‑nuclear allies—even hinting at deployment on their territory—are driving an “uncontrolled expansion” of the alliance’s nuclear potential. It says any future arms control with Russian participation must account for NATO’s overall arsenal and pointedly cites “scandalous” reports that the U.K. and France have considered transferring nuclear elements to Ukraine as a grave NPT risk.
• See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • “China may be preparing for nuclear war. The U.S. isn’t,” Robert Peters, Washington Post, 03.09.26.
  • “With the End of the New START Treaty, Nuclear Anarchy Has Arrived”, Eric Alter, National Interest, 03.02.26.
  • "Macron’s Île-Longue Speech: Updating France’s Nuclear Doctrine for a New Era," Astrid Chevreuil, CSIS, 03.04.26.
  • "The Birth of European Nuclear Deterrence," Antony Dabila, Project Syndicate, 03.05.26.

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

“How AI Is Turbocharging the War in Iran,” Daniel Michaels and Dov Lieber, Wall Street Journal, 03.07.26.

• Michaels and Lieber note that “Ukraine—with U.S. help—increasingly relies on AI in its war against Russia,” using similar tools for intelligence, targeting, and mission planning, and that NATO states are already using AI “to track Russia’s shadow fleet of tankers,” scanning “millions of square miles several times a day” for illicit ship‑to‑ship transfers. French Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO’s top digital officer, says AI has turned analysis from “groping in darkness for targets” into sifting through an abundance of them: “The number of targets you can nominate through AI is just skyrocketing.”
• They highlight that the Pentagon’s AI projects—such as Palantir‑enabled exercises and Strategy Robot’s digital wargaming—are being shaped by lessons from Ukraine, where AI‑assisted targeting drastically cuts manpower needs and accelerates planning. But former DoD AI chief Jack Shanahan warns that “the Department of Defense was built as a hardware company in the industrial age, and it has struggled to become a digital company,” while Emelia Probasco cautions that offloading decisions to algorithms—“the computer said to do this”—is “a serious concern” that current safeguards are “underinvested in.”
• See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • "The People's Liberation Army's Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence Highlighting Integration as Key to 'Intelligentization' Goals," Austin Horng-En Wang, Emily Lathrop, Michael S. Chase, and William Marcellino, RAND Corporation, 03.04.26.

Energy exports from CIS:

 “The Big Winner From the Persian Gulf Energy Crisis? Russia”, Rebecca Feng, Wall Street Journal, 03.07.26.

• Feng writes that “just over a week ago, Russia’s energy industry was in its worst shape in years,” with “millions of barrels of Russian oil” floating at sea unsold, but “the war in the Persian Gulf has turned that dynamic on its head.” Russian crude that “struggled to find buyers last week is now a hot commodity,” as the U.S. issues waivers so India and others can buy Russian barrels and loosens restrictions on Rosneft’s German arm. Analyst Naveen Das argues that “the longer that this conflict goes on, the world will increasingly rely on both Russian crude oil and Russian refined products.”
• Higher prices and Gulf disruptions give Vladimir Putin “renewed swagger.” “Other markets are opening now,” he told state TV, asking, “If they shut us down in a month or two, wouldn’t it be better to stop now and move to those countries that are reliable partners?” With Brent up nearly 30% and Asian buyers bidding Russian barrels at a premium, Feng notes that Europe faces a “more menacing” threat if Putin cuts the remaining 13% of its gas and LNG imports, even as IEA chief Fatih Birol warns that going “back to Russia” would be a “mistake.”

“Russia Revels in a Sudden Reversal in Fortunes as Oil and Gas Prices Soar,” Paul Sonne and Jeanna Smialek, New York Times, 03.07.26.

• Sonne and Smialek report that as the Iran war “disrupts energy production and shipment across the Middle East and sends global energy prices soaring,” the Kremlin is “enjoying a sudden resurgence of its importance as a global supplier of oil and gas.” European gas futures are “more than 60 percent” higher than before the conflict, while U.S. benchmark crude has jumped “more than 35 percent” in a week to $91 a barrel, after a year in which Russian oil and gas revenues had fallen “by nearly a quarter.” In his first comments since the U.S.–Israeli strikes, Vladimir Putin derided Europe’s effort to phase out Russian gas, declaring that “other markets are opening up” and that “perhaps it’s more advantageous for us to stop supplying the European market right now.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters, “We are seeing an increase in demand, a substantive increase in demand for Russian energy providers in connection with the war in Iran.”
•  European and Western officials insist they should not “crawl back” to Russian energy even as the EU still gets “about 13 percent of its gas and 3 percent of its oil from Russia,” down from 45 and 27 percent in 2021. Fatih Birol of the I.E.A. warned that “one of Europe’s historical mistakes was the overreliance of its energy sources on one single country, which is Russia,” and said that looking back to Moscow would be “economically and, in my view, politically wrong.” By contrast, Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev crowed on social media that Russia is a “must-have supplier of energy,” predicting “a complete energy collapse and bankruptcy” in Europe because of “idiotic” and “Russophobic” decisions, while analyst Alexander Gabuev argued that with Iran plus Venezuela making up “about 17 percent of China’s oil imports,” the disruption means “this has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is Russia.”

“‘The Old Game Is Back’: Oil Is a Potent Geopolitical Tool Again,” Rebecca F. Elliott, New York Times, 03.09.26.

• Elliott opens by arguing that 2026—“from the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro to the war in the Middle East”—has “served as a powerful reminder of oil’s enduring influence in geopolitics and the global economy.” With crude “trading above $100 a barrel for the first time in almost four years” and a U.S. blockade “starving Cuba of energy,” she says it “feels almost like revisiting an earlier time” when oil was both prize and weapon, even though oil now supplies less than 30 percent of global energy but in absolute terms the world uses almost twice as much as in the early 1970s.
• Elliott quotes director of Harvard’s Belfer Center Meghan O’Sullivan saying that “the energy weapon never went away, but there’s a whole confluence of global conditions — and then individual decisions by the Trump administration and others — that have really brought it back to the fore.” O’Sullivan, now at Harvard’s Kennedy School, reminds readers that “energy can be a tool of foreign policy, but it can also be an objective,” pointing to Trump’s pursuit of Venezuelan oil and the U.S. blockade “starving Cuba of energy” as current examples of oil being both leverage and prize.
• Looking at Iran’s disruption of Gulf flows and the blockade of Cuba, O’Sullivan argues that the current crisis “is going to underscore yet again how exposed countries are to energy sources that are produced outside their borders.” In her view, the return of oil and gas as front-line geopolitical tools is inseparable from today’s broader strategic environment: a United States “unwinding trading relationships and clashing with other great powers,” where energy security, sanctions, and the ability to disrupt supply are once again central to statecraft.
• In conclusion, Elliott notes that clean energy has its own geopolitical vulnerabilities—especially reliance on Chinese-made solar, wind and battery technology—but emphasizes that renewables are harder to “weaponize” than hydrocarbons. As former Treasury official Catherine Wolfram puts it, “You can’t weaponize the sun. You can’t weaponize the wind,” because once a country has installed the hardware, the underlying energy sources “cannot be taken away,” unlike oil and gas flows that can be blockaded or sanctioned.

"Russian Crude and India: Here to Stay Amid Middle East Tensions?" Shashwat Kumar, CSIS, 03.06.26.

• “For most of 2025, the Trump administration pressured India to curb Russian crude imports. … India’s traditional Gulf oil suppliers who could have replaced Russian crude are under attack, and supplies from Venezuela remain too low to offset major disruptions. Amid uncertainty, Russian crude oil flows to India might endure, not by choice, but by necessity,” the author writes.
• “Can India afford to cut Russian reliance further from current levels (around 20–22 percent) amid turmoil in other major oil-producing regions? Pragmatism suggests it won’t be an easy decision to make for Indian policymakers,” according to the author. 
• “Buoyed by strong macroeconomics and ample global supply, earlier analysis suggested India could afford a phased shift away from Russian crude to circumvent U.S. sanctions,” the author argues. “This rebalancing seemed on track until now. The conflict in the Middle East threatens to upend U.S. strategy aimed at containing Russia.”
• “For India, diversification remains key. The conflict increases the chances of greater reliance on Russian crude, and perhaps bring gas into the mix. This combination may elevate Moscow to a Gulf-tier supplier of energy for India once again. Import shares from Gulf countries may rebound post-crisis, as OPEC+ has agreed to slightly increase oil output. Yet pragmatism rules: With the U.S. waiver in hand, ongoing extensions amid geopolitical uncertainties should not be ruled out. Russian crude flows to India may endure less by desire than by demand,” the author concludes.

“Europe’s coastal states tighten enforcement on Russia’s shadow fleet,” Charlie Edwards, IISS, 03.09.26.

• Edwards writes that recent boardings of the Caffa off Trelleborg and the shadow‑fleet tanker Ethera in the North Sea show European NATO states “have decided to adopt a more assertive enforcement posture,” building on France’s January 2026 interdiction of the tanker Grinch, which “set a new precedent” for disrupting sanctions evasion. He notes that by early March, “the United States (supported by the United Kingdom) and at least eight European coastal states had boarded, detained or seized Russian‑linked vessels,” while over the past four years “over 9,500 Russian tanker voyages” have transited the Strait of Dover and “42 sanctioned oil tankers travelled through the English Channel” in January 2026 alone.
• He reports that Moscow has responded by “reflagging shadow-fleet tankers to the Russian registry to claim sovereign protection, while occasionally deploying military escorts,” citing the General Skobelev being accompanied through the English Channel by a Russian corvette. Edwards argues that the Kremlin’s aim “does not seem to be to protect every shadow-fleet tanker” but to “shape Europe’s perception of its intent… and raise the political cost of interdiction,” thereby “test[ing] political cohesion, amplif[ying] the threat of escalation, and deter[ring] further action by NATO member states in contested waters.”
• The author warns that “uneven enforcement has eroded both the credibility of the sanctions regime and NATO’s deterrence posture,” and says few European capitals can sustain a “high-tempo posture for long,” risking random boardings that look escalatory “without being strategically decisive.” He urges greater use of port‑state control, environmental and insurance mandates, and criminal investigations against an ageing fleet whose “average age… is approximately 18 years,” concluding that without a “clear enforcement strategy,” Europe will see “a pattern of hesitant, fragmented action that erodes deterrence and invites the Kremlin to test Alliance cohesion in contested waters.”

“Is the nightmare scenario for global energy here?” Daniel Yergin, Financial Times, 03.07.26.

• Yergin argues that the new war involving Iran has produced the largest disruption to oil output in history and a severe shock to global gas markets, centered on the near-paralysis of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about 20% of global oil and nearly 20% of LNG. With tankers largely absent, war-risk insurance soaring, and vessels attacked or threatened by drones and Iranian fast boats, Brent crude is up roughly 50%, Asian spot LNG prices have nearly doubled, and European gas prices have risen about 50%, with immediate pain in Asia—now taking over 80% of Gulf oil and 90% of LNG—but mounting pressure on Europe, Africa and North America.
•  He contends that today’s energy system is more resilient and diversified than during earlier Gulf crises. Iran and Venezuela are now marginal suppliers, the United States has become the world’s largest oil producer and top LNG exporter, and US shale and LNG have already cushioned Europe from Russia’s gas cutoffs. Additional buffers [are] China’s stockpiles, IEA strategic reserves, and Gulf pipelines that bypass Hormuz.

"U.S. Success Against Iran Could Be a Game Changer for World Oil Security," Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal, 03.03.26.

• Ip sketches a best‑case scenario in which U.S.-Israeli strikes weaken Iran’s ability to disrupt oil flows, Tehran ultimately accepts Trump’s conditions on nukes, missiles and proxies, sanctions are lifted, and Iran gradually raises production toward its pre‑1979 potential.
• Together with regime change and sanctions relief in Venezuela, friendlier or neutral governments in both countries would remove two chronic sources of supply disruption and price spikes, reducing the “geopolitical premium” in global oil prices.
• In that world, Russia would be the only remaining adversarial oil power with significant sway; it would lose two reliable allies that had helped it dilute U.S. influence and could see its own oil exports undercut by revived Iranian and Venezuelan output.
• The direct economic benefit to the U.S. is modest—America is already a net petroleum exporter and is more vulnerable in critical minerals and semiconductors—but the geopolitical gains could be large, freeing military resources for the Indo‑Pacific.
• Ip cautions that this optimistic scenario downplays major risks, from civil war or worse regimes in Tehran or Caracas to open‑ended U.S. military commitments to enforce compliance, echoing the Iraq experience that Trump has vowed not to repeat.
• See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • "Russia in OPEC+: A Wedding General," Mikhail Krutikhin, The Moscow Times, 03.03.26. (In Russian.)
  • "What Does the Iran War Mean for Global Energy Markets?" Joseph Majkut et. al. CSIS, 03.06.26.

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Putin held a telephone conversation with Trump”, RIA Novosti, 03.09.26. Machine-translated.

• Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that “this evening a telephone conversation between the presidents of Russia and the United States took place,” and said the “accent, indeed, was placed on the situation around the conflict with Iran and on the bilateral negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement being conducted with the participation of U.S. representatives.” He added that, on Iran, “the U.S. president gave his assessment of the development of the situation in the context of the ongoing U.S.-Israeli operation,” indicating that Trump focused on how the joint campaign was unfolding.
• On Ukraine, Ushakov said that “President Trump once again expressed interest that the conflict on Ukraine should end with the quickest possible move to a ceasefire and the achievement of a long-term settlement.” He characterized this as a reiteration that Trump “is interested” in seeing the war brought to “a speedy ceasefire” and a durable resolution.
• Ushakov also noted that the two presidents “touched upon the issue of Venezuela,” explaining that this was discussed “primarily in the context of the state of affairs on the global oil market.” By linking Venezuela and Iran both to oil, he suggested that energy prices and supply disruptions caused by the “conflict with Iran” formed a third strand of the conversation alongside Iran itself and the Ukraine talks.

“In Russia, distrust toward Trump grows as war on its ally Iran rages,” Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 03.06.26.

• Weir reports that Russian officials publicly insist “this is not our war,” with ruling‑party official Andrei Klimov saying Russia condemns the “unprovoked aggression” against Iran but “we didn’t start it, and we aren’t taking any part in it,” even as the Washington Post reports Moscow is quietly providing targeting intelligence on “the location of U.S. warships and aircraft.” Fyodor Lukyanov says that in the short term “there are a lot of factors that look positive for Russian interests” because “the Americans are distracted, the Europeans are confused, and military supplies for Ukraine are diminished.”
• Economically, Weir notes that oil and gas prices “began spiking on international markets almost immediately after the war began,” and that “they could surge even further if Iran succeeds in closing the vital Strait of Hormuz,” which carries “about one‑fifth of the world’s supply” of those commodities. He adds that India, which had “been pivoting away from purchases of Russian oil at Washington’s behest, quickly began to reconsider its plans as the market supply dwindled,” giving Moscow a welcome export outlet.
• Politically, Dmitry Suslov says the war has “badly battered” the thaw in U.S.–Russia relations, arguing that “no matter what the U.S. declares, their policy is aggressive and aimed at imposing U.S. hegemony,” and that “negotiations are fake, just a ruse to provide cover for preparing military actions.” Lukyanov concludes there are now “no more illusions in Moscow that Mr. Trump might prove to be a friend of Russia,” with some in the elite saying “we are really going to miss Joe Biden and his administration. They might have been anti‑Russian, but at least they knew some limits. It doesn’t look like Trump does.”

“Where The Tracks Cross: How could a new war in Iran affect the prospects for peace talks and Moscow-Washington relations?,” Re:Russia, 03.06.26.

•  This analysis says Trump’s Iran war intersects the Ukraine track along three obvious lines—distracting Trump from a settlement, draining U.S. weapons destined for Kyiv, and lifting Russia’s oil and gas income—but also in deeper ways, since Washington is now using the same “preemptive defense” rhetoric toward Iran that Moscow deploys to justify its aggression and demands for Ukrainian “demilitarization.” That symmetry, the authors argue, bolsters Russia’s bargaining position as it presses for limits on Ukraine’s future military potential.
• They argue Moscow deliberately leveraged Iran as a strategic asset in two rounds of Trump-era bargaining. First, during the 2025 “negotiation–war” cycle over Iran’s nuclear program, Russia withheld S‑400s, Su‑35s, and other high‑end kit Tehran desperately wanted, signaling that its help—or neutrality—could be traded in dealings with Washington. Second, as a new confrontation loomed in late 2025–26, leaks about a major Su‑35 deal and continued nuclear‑energy and transport projects with Iran served as pressure points in parallel talks on Russian oil sanctions and a Ukraine peace plan.
• The piece concludes that Moscow’s refusal to bail Iran out militarily, even after Tehran supplied drones and missiles for the Ukraine war, shows both Russia’s limits and its readiness to treat Iran as a bargaining chip rather than a true ally. The key questions now, it says, are whether the Kremlin has already been fully paid—in sanctions relief, restraint on arms to Ukraine, or political gestures—or is still holding out, and how the eventual outcome of the “second war in Iran” will either weaken Russia by removing a key asset or keep enhancing its leverage if the conflict ends ambiguously. 

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Russians Continue to See State as Guarantor of Social ‘Security and Certainty’,” Russia.Post, 03.05.26.

• The study finds that Russians overwhelmingly agree that “Russia is a country with a developed social policy, with active state involvement,” with 87% rating that statement 5–10 out of 10. The state is perceived as the “key actor” in social support, infrastructure and media regulation and, in many respondents’ eyes, a “guarantee of security and certainty” amid “economic instability and foreign political tensions,” the researchers write. Visible, “sharp and visually noticeable” improvements—urban environment, sports facilities, local cultural projects—are prized, while education, health care and support for vulnerable groups are said to be “significantly and systemically lagging behind,” creating a gap between “invisible” human‑capital development and “outwardly visible improvements.”
• When asked who really shapes social well‑being, respondents again put state actors first: 54% say they depend on the federal government “to the greatest extent,” with regional and municipal authorities close behind, while the public, NGOs and small business trail far. People feel “completely dependent on the authorities” in core areas and see themselves as “passive observers of their own social environment,” the study concludes. Volunteering and charity are viewed as the only “powerful and effective” tools ordinary Russians have; formal participatory mechanisms are dismissed as lacking “long‑term dialogue and real solutions,” feeding “social anxiety and dissatisfaction” over health care, jobs and basic services.
• See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • “In Russia’s Former Capital, Restoring the Past to Survive the Present,” Ivan Nechepurenko and Mary Gelman, New York Times, 03.08.26.
  • "This is not a disaster!" Vladislav Inozemtsev, The Moscow Times, 03.04.26. (In Russian.)
  • "Russia prepares Telegram endgame," Alexander Kolyandr and Alexandra Prokopenko, The Bell, 03.04.26.
  • "Can Telegram challenge the Putin regime?" The Bell, 03.03.26.
  • “Conditional Ownership: Russia’s Two Property Regimes,” Maxim Trudolyubov, The Russia File (Kennan Institute), 03.06.26.

Defense and aerospace:

Infographics: "Missile Maps and Data Visualizations," Missile Defense Project, CSIS, 03.03.26. These graphics display the missile activity and capabilities of countries around the globe, including missile ranges, missile testing patterns and more. Russia infographic by CSIS Missile Defense Project, March 2026.

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

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• No significant developments.

   

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

• See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • “Ukraine and the Paradox of National Conservatism,” Adrian Karatnycky, Foreign Policy, 03.06.26.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant developments.

Endnotes

1. Oil skyrocketed 25% overnight, to just under $120 a barrel, according to Axios.

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

AI was used in production of this digest.

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

Slider photo: Flames rise from an oil storage facility south of the capital Tehran as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israel military campaign, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)