Russia Analytical Report, March 16–23, 2026

3 Ideas to Explore

  1. The FT editorial board describes the Iran war as “an unintended U.S. gift to the Kremlin,” noting that “higher global energy prices and greater demand for Russian oil are delivering a hefty windfall.” “Moscow is earning up to $150 million a day in extra budget revenues” and could gain “$3.3–$4.9 billion by the end of March,” roughly “a third of its monthly spending on its war on Ukraine,” the FT board estimates. But higher oil prices are the not only of America’s gift to Russia. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is also making Russia “a fertilizer superpower,” which accounts for “about 23% of global ammonia exports, 14% of urea and—together with Belarus—about 40% of global potash exports,” with “all this export infrastructure ...in no way connected with the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Russian expert Aleksandra Prokopenko. “The Iranian war is likely to end before most people link it to rising food prices in 2027,” she argues. When that happens, “Russia will be able to position itself as an indispensable supplier who did not let the world go hungry. The Kremlin did not sow this harvest, but with a high degree of probability it will reap it,” Prokopenko writes for Carnegie Politika.
  2. “Three weeks into the war, “the Iranian regime is signaling that it believes it is winning,” according to WSJ’s Yaroslav Trofimov. This experienced journalist reports that Iran has retained the ability to fire dozens of ballistic missiles, and many more drones, every day across the Middle East.” Crucially, “instead of declining, the rate of fire actually picked up in recent days compared with 10 days ago,” with recent Iranian salvoes causing “catastrophic damage” to key energy installations in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE, even as “Iran’s own oil exports kept booming” while shipping through Hormuz remains “only possible with Iranian permission,” according to Trofimov. Iran’s regime’s belief that it may be winning can “prove to be a dangerous misreading of President Trump’s determination, or of Israel’s capacity to inflict strategic blows on the Islamic Republic’s surviving leadership and military capabilities,” Trofimov warned in his March 20 news analysis. On March 23 Trump said Washington would postpone attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure for five days following what he described as “constructive” talks.
  3. Dara Massicot of Carnegie Endowment argues in Foreign Affairs that whenever the Russian-Ukrainian war ends, both Ukraine and Russia will face a generational test reintegrating vast veteran populations, with stakes for social cohesion, security, and reconstruction. She estimates that Ukraine may have up to 2 million veterans, many needing long‑term physical and mental‑health care in an already overstretched system. As for Russia, it will likely exceed 1 million veterans, many drawn from convicts or men with pre‑existing problems, returning to intact but wary communities shaped by memories of Afghan and Chechen vets and already seeing a rise in crime, Massicot warns.

U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda

Nuclear security and safety:

  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
    • “The Difficulty of Getting Iran’s Nuclear Materials,” Andrew Weber, New York Times, 03.20.26.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

  • No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

“America’s war on Iran is a gift to Vladimir Putin,” The editorial board, Financial Times, 03.18.26.

  • The FT editorial board says the Iran war is “an unintended U.S. gift to the Kremlin,” noting that “higher global energy prices and greater demand for Russian oil are delivering a hefty windfall.” They calculate that “Moscow is earning up to $150 million a day in extra budget revenues” and could gain “$3.3 –$4.9 billion by the end of March,” roughly “a third of its monthly spending on its war on Ukraine,” the board writes.
  • The editors call Washington’s decision to relax some oil sanctions “regrettable,” arguing it “punctures western solidarity” and “fuels Putin’s narrative that the west… is not ready to take real pain to support Kyiv.” They warn that “every Patriot missile sent to protect U.S. targets and Gulf partners… is one that cannot end up in Kyiv,” and urge Europe to “limit the Kremlin’s energy windfall” and “most urgently” pass the EU’s 20th sanctions package and a further “€9 billion loan to Kyiv,” insisting Trump’s “ill-conceived conflict with Iran… must not be allowed to give Putin the upper hand in his own ill-begotten war against his neighbor.”

“Not by Oil Alone: How the Closure of Hormuz Is Making Russia a Fertilizer Superpower,” Aleksandra Prokopenko, Carnegie Politika, 03.20.26. Clues from Russian Views.

  • Prokopenko writes that through Hormuz runs “the most important route in the world” not only for oil but also for fertilizers, noting that Gulf states “provide about 46% of global seaborne urea supplies and around 30% of ammonia,” and that “their supplies from the Persian Gulf have almost stopped.” She reports that disruptions have already led to “a sharp rise in prices for nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers”: on March 19, Platts put granular urea FOB Middle East at “$604–710 per ton, compared with $436–494 before the start of the war,” while “the price of carbamide in Southeast Asia… amounted to $750 per ton against $490–498 at the end of February.” Citing the UN World Food Program, she warns that if the Iran war does not end by mid‑year and oil remains above $100, “the number of people suffering from acute food shortages will increase by an additional 45 million, reaching a record 363 million,” with “Eastern and Southern Africa—an additional 17.7 million,” “Western and Central Africa—10.4 million,” and “Asia—9.1 million.”
  • Turning to Russia, Prokopenko argues that “as in the situation with oil, one of the main beneficiaries of problems on the fertilizer market turns out to be Russia,” stressing that it accounts for “about 23% of global ammonia exports, 14% of urea and—together with Belarus—about 40% of global potash exports,” and that “all this export infrastructure is in no way connected with the Strait of Hormuz.” She notes that “importers in Nigeria and Ghana are already placing preliminary orders for the third quarter with Russian suppliers,” calling this “a rational market reaction to the disappearance of competing supply,” and adds that “once‑established ties are converted into dependence, which can outlast any ceasefire.” Fertilizers, she writes, are “an even more convenient tool of influence” than grain because “in the Western news cycle they are less noticeable than wheat, but for agriculture even more critical,” and because the official in Ethiopia or Bangladesh “does not discuss the Ukrainian question when he needs urea before the monsoon. He calls the Kremlin, and there they pick up the phone.”
  • Prokopenko emphasizes that in Moscow “they are well aware of the opportunities opening up,” quoting presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev’s description of the U.S. war with Iran as “a structural restructuring that should be used,” with the operation serving as “a catalyst for the redistribution of the global energy market and the destruction of maritime logistics” and an event with “unpredictable humanitarian and economic consequences.” She concludes that “the strategic gain for the Kremlin from problems in the Persian Gulf is not so much financial as geopolitical,” since higher fertilizer and food prices mean “Russia not only wins from rising prices, but also gets the opportunity to convert market power into political rent, to obtain a lever of pressure precisely on those countries whose neutrality is important for the West.” “The Iranian war is likely to end before most people link it to rising food prices in 2027,” she writes; by then, “Russia will be able to position itself as an indispensable supplier who did not let the world go hungry. The Kremlin did not sow this harvest, but with a high degree of probability it will reap it.”

“In Focus” in “Bulletin No. 6 (180) 2026,” Tatyana Stanovaya, R.Politik, 03.23.26. Clues from Russian Views.

  • Tatyana Stanovaya writes that the US “temporary waiver on Russian oil sales has created a short‑term export window that has dramatically narrowed the discount on Russia’s Urals oil and accelerated deliveries to China and India,” but stresses this is “a favorable but temporary development,” with Putin warning officials not to expect “lasting relief.” Gains “should not be overstated,” she argues, since “much of the immediate windfall is accruing to traders and intermediaries rather than the state budget,” and whether it matters fiscally “depends on how high and how long prices remain elevated.”
  • She notes that “multiple structural factors,” from “persistent infrastructure damage” and “tight tanker insurance” to “intensified Asia competition,” point to prices “staying high or rising even more,” yet a rapid end to the Iran conflict and reopening Hormuz could cause “a sharp reversal,” underlining the “unpredictability of Russia’s fiscal outlook.”
  • Despite the windfall, “Russia’s federal budget remains under acute strain,” with the January–February deficit “already at 90 percent of the full‑year plan,” forcing “asymmetric spending cuts that protect military operations and social obligations but slash civilian infrastructure projects,” Stanovaya concludes.

“Historian shares how Russia benefits from the U.S. being at war with Iran,” Sergey Radchenko interview, NPR, 03.17.26.

  • Sergey Radchenko stresses that Russia and Iran “are not military allies,” explaining that although they signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” “Russia is not bound to help Iran.” “We have had some information that Russia is providing some data to Iran to target American installations,” he says, “but otherwise… Putin is not in a great hurry to help.” Radchenko insists “there is absolutely no way that Russia is going to send soldiers or even a large quantity of weapons,” because it “requires” those systems “for its own war in Ukraine.”
  • “What he [Putin] does benefit from,” Radchenko argues, “is a slow-running war which keeps the Americans distracted from Ukraine, the transatlantic alliance in a state of considerable disarray… and also oil prices high because that is something that will keep Putin’s coffers full.” Russia’s influence in the Middle East has “declined,” he says, but Moscow can still gain from diversionary pressure on Washington—even as it “does not want to be directly engaged in a conflict with the United States over Iran.”

“Iran and the New Arithmetic of War,” Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post, 03.20.26.

  • Zakaria argues that Ukraine is “the great laboratory of this new age,” where cheap autonomous systems and software are rewriting warfare. He notes that Ukraine’s STING interceptor drone “costs about $2,000, flies up to 280 kilometers per hour, has downed more than 3,000 Shaheds since mid-2025,” and is being produced “at more than 10,000 a month.” Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov says Ukraine now possesses “a unique array of battlefield data that is unmatched anywhere else in the world,” including “millions of annotated images” from “tens of thousands of combat flights,” so “the war’s most valuable output may not just be hardware. It may be data.”
  • Zakaria stresses that “the problem is no longer simply technological sophistication. It is industrial scale, software integration and the speed with which lessons from the battlefield are turned into mass production,” warning that Moscow is reportedly producing “404 Shahed-type drones a day and aims eventually for 1,000 a day,” a pace Western interceptor output struggles to match.

“The Stunning Failure of Iranian Deterrence: And Why It Augurs a More Dangerous World,” Nicole Grajewski and Ankit Panda, Foreign Affairs, 03.19.26.

  • Grajewski and Panda argue that Tehran’s entire deterrent architecture has “tipped over,” writing that “Iran started to lose its balance; now it has tipped over.” They say Iran built a “system of layered deterrence”—missiles, proxies, and a threshold nuclear program—but “made a series of errors that proved deadly.” By firing large salvos at Israel in 2024 and again in the 12‑Day War of June 2025, Iran turned its vaunted missile force into “live-fire training exercises for its enemies’ benefit,” they write, noting that in 2025 “Iran launched approximately 500 missiles at Israel; Israeli forces reported that only 31 landed in populated areas,” while Israel destroyed “roughly half of Iran’s estimated 400 mobile missile launchers.”
  • Tehran’s proxies also backfired: “By 2026, the axis that was meant to shield Iran left it exposed,” the authors contend, and its threshold nuclear strategy was “perhaps Iran’s most consequential error.” The JCPOA’s transparency and Iran’s later decision to “publicize its nuclear advances” meant that “the United States and Israel had the confidence to strike Iran’s nuclear program in 2025 and 2026 in part because they knew almost exactly what they were up against.” Their stark conclusion is that “wars fought to prevent proliferation can end up accelerating it,” and that after watching Iran’s fate, “governments… will draw the same conclusion that North Korea did years ago: a nuclear weapon is essential to prevent an attack from the United States.”

“Donald Trump has four bad options for the war in Iran,” The Economist, 03.22.26.

  • The Economist argues that Trump’s Iran strategy “is like the weather in his home state of Florida: if you don’t like it, then wait for five minutes,” noting that on Friday he said the war might soon be “winding down,” then the next day gave Tehran “a 48-hour deadline” to reopen Hormuz or face strikes that would “obliterate their various power plants.” The war, the piece says, was entered “with a flawed strategy, starting with its failure to anticipate that Iran would close the strait,” and now leaves Trump with “four options… talk, leave, continue or escalate. If he has not yet chosen one, it is because none of them are good.”
  • On “staying the course,” the article highlights that Iranian missile‑and‑drone attacks on Israel and Gulf states have fallen “from nearly 1,000 on the first day of the war to an average of less than 100 per day now,” but warns that as long as Iran can keep up “sporadic attacks on shipping, it can probably keep the strait closed,” while “ongoing Iranian attacks would deplete the supply of air-defense interceptors in Israel and the Gulf.” Escalation—seizing Kharg Island, hitting power plants, or raiding nuclear sites—would be “fraught with risk,” potentially triggering even bigger strikes on “oil-and-gas facilities in the Gulf,” as seen when Iran’s March 18 attack on Qatar’s LNG plant took “3% of the world’s LNG supply… offline for up to five years.”


“America Has No Good Options in Iran: Trump Needs an Off-Ramp,” Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Affairs, 03.20.26.

  • Goldenberg’s conclusion is blunt: “the task ahead is not to rescue an elusive victory but to limit the damage.” He urges Trump to declare that the United States has “substantially achieved” its narrower objective of degrading Iran’s capabilities and to “signal a willingness to halt further escalation,” arguing that in wars like Iran—and, by implication, Russia’s in Ukraine—“the most responsible course is not to press forward in search of a win but to recognize when the costs outweigh the gains—and to step back before a limited conflict becomes an engulfing quagmire.”

“The Iran war is metastasizing. Trump needs an endgame,” David Ignatius, Washington Post, 03.19.26.

  • David Ignatius writes that “nobody else will clean up the mess in Iran,” so “President Donald Trump needs to finish the war he started so impulsively—by setting a limited, achievable goal of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and containing an Iranian regime that’s seething for revenge.” The conflict “entered a dangerous new phase” when Israel hit South Pars and Iran struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG hub, he notes, warning that “gas may be an even bigger worry for the global economy than oil,” since “no such work-around exists for Qatari gas.”
  • Ignatius cautions that “attacking Iran was defensible; wrecking NATO isn’t,” and adds that “if Trump, in his pique, decides to abandon Ukraine and seek solace from Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as Moscow is reportedly feeding Iran intelligence about American targets, Congress should rebel.”
  • “The path out of this war begins with realistic objectives,” Ignatius argues, urging Trump to choose and execute a strategy—“coercion, or diplomacy, or a combination of the two”—rather than declare victory and walk away.

“How America’s War on Iran Backfired: Tehran Will Now Set the Terms for Peace,” Nate Swanson, Foreign Affairs, 03.17.26.

  • Nate Swanson argues that Trump’s joint war with Israel has produced tactical gains but a strategic failure, leaving an Iran that is battered yet more cohesive, more hard‑line and able to wage a long war of attrition. 
  • Swanson contends that the conflict is now converging on a bad binary for Washington: either double down on an unpopular war (including the risky option of U.S. ground forces or proxy wars) or accept a cease-fire in which Iran demands U.S. guarantees to restrain future Israeli strikes, forcing Trump to “choose between Israel’s security interests and the stability of global markets.” He notes that maintaining pressure on Iran and securing the Gulf will draw on the same U.S. attention, munitions, and air/missile defense systems needed to deter Russia and sustain Ukraine, implying that a prolonged Iran war will indirectly strengthen Moscow’s hand by straining Western arsenals, driving up energy prices, and deepening global fatigue with U.S. military interventions.

“War in Iran is making Donald Trump weaker—and angrier,” The Economist (Leaders), 03.19.26.

  • The editors argue that Trump’s Iran campaign is “ill-judged” and “heedless,” warning that “even a short war will alter the course of his second term. One that lasts months could bring it crashing to earth,” and stressing that the conflict is eroding his political “superpowers” at home.
  • Looking ahead, they caution that a weakened Trump “may abandon NATO,” “cut Ukraine loose to punish Europe,” and “will be maximalist on tariffs,” adding that “even if he does not succeed, that will further erode America’s alliances, to the glee of China and Russia,” as the leader starkly puts it.

“The Israel Lobby’s Responsibility for the Iran War,” Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, 03.17.26.

  • Stephen Walt argues that while responsibility for the Iran war lies chiefly with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, key elements of the U.S. “Israel lobby” helped create the political conditions for it. He emphasizes the lobby is a loose coalition of groups and individuals (Jewish and non‑Jewish) that defend an unconditional U.S.–Israel “special relationship,” and warns it is both analytically wrong and dangerous to blame “American Jews” as a whole. Walt notes that pro‑Israel hawks and organizations such as AIPAC, FDD, ZOA, and United Against Nuclear Iran spent years demonizing Tehran, blocking earlier rapprochement efforts, and helping kill the 2015 nuclear deal—leaving Iran’s program less constrained and the U.S. closer to war. Combined with Trump’s heavily pro‑Israel inner circle and dependence on donors such as Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, he argues, this lobby‑driven environment enabled Netanyahu’s “reckless driving” across the region and made it far easier for Washington to join Israel’s offensive against Iran.

“America’s failing gunboat diplomacy,” The Economist (Lexington), 03.17.26.

  • The Lexington columnist says Donald Trump “has repeatedly startled the world by applying 19th-century methods to modern security problems,” yet “time and again threats and shows of force fail to work quite as expected.” Steve Witkoff told Fox that Trump was “curious” Iran had not “capitulated,” while Pete Hegseth denied being surprised when Tehran shut Hormuz, only for Trump to later beg China and Europe to help reopen it. The piece notes Trump “wants to pick Iran’s new leader” after abducting Nicolás Maduro and calls him “too sure that he can cow foreign leaders by threatening to bomb their countries.” Vice President J.D. Vance’s remark that he doesn’t see why “Russians and Ukrainians keep killing each other and do not ‘engage in some commerce’” exemplifies, the author argues, an imperial nostalgia and incomprehension of motives beyond money that Beijing now exploits for propaganda.

“‘This conflict will set back the system of global trade for years:’ Nikolai Patrushev on the Middle East and beyond,” interview to Elena Chernenko, Kommersant, 03.18.26. Clues from Russian views. Machine-translated.

  • Patrushev says that the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran and the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz have “turned [the strait] into a zone of confrontation, dangerous for shipping,” and argues that “the current conflict will set back for years the system of global trade and economic relations that had been built up.” He calls Operation Epic Fury “a catalyst for the redistribution of the global energy market and the breakdown of maritime logistics,” insisting that “there is no ‘epicness’ in this ‘fury’—instead the world is witnessing a tragedy with unpredictable humanitarian and economic consequences,” from damaged oil and gas infrastructure and “colossal ecological damage” in the Gulf to higher energy prices, freight tariffs, and “a reduction in world fertilizer exports, which negatively affects the agro‑industrial complex in Asia, Africa, and Europe.”
  • Responding to claims that Russia benefits from the crisis, Patrushev insists that “the conflict is unprofitable for any of the sides” and that “for the U.S. itself it is destructive,” because “the Americans with their own hands are destroying their status as guarantor of security for allies around the world.” He says faith in Western bases and in alliance with America “is evaporating before our eyes” and predicts that restrictions on energy supplies “will inevitably lead to the shutdown of energy‑intensive industries in Japan, South Korea, Australia, and EU countries.” On attacks and detentions targeting Russia’s “shadow fleet,” he calls the strike on the LNG tanker Arctic Metagas in the Mediterranean “an egregious case” that Moscow regards “as an act of international terrorism,” warns that “the risk of terrorist and sabotage threats against ships bound for Russian ports is not decreasing,” and outlines plans for “convoying the merchant fleet with Navy ships” and even “placing special means of protection on ships” if European pressure intensifies
  • Patrushev also touts Russia’s progress on naval drones, saying that “autonomous, unmanned, remotely operated underwater vehicles are already in use in Russia” and that “our military science is not lagging; in many respects, it is ahead of foreign developments.” He says Russian institutes are analyzing the domestic market “to identify the most promising solutions for creating sea drones” and emphasizes that “attention is also being paid to small private companies, a number of which have independently created prototypes that are on par with foreign counterparts.” Western strategists, he asserts, have “long understood that one way to inflict critical damage on a state is to block its foreign trade operations,” so Russia must build an “import‑independent model of the maritime economy” with its own fleet, shipbuilding, ports, and insurers: “we will continue to integrate into the global maritime economy… but only on terms of mutual benefit.” 

“Karaganov: due to a giant shift around the world, conflicts will grow,” Elizaveta Tyulyubaeva, Vesti, 03.20.26. Vesti is Russian -government TV news program. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

“The Lasting Wounds of the War in Ukraine: Both Sides Will Struggle to Reintegrate Millions of Veterans,” Dara Massicot, Foreign Affairs, 03.18.26.

  • Dara Massicot argues that whenever the war ends, both Ukraine and Russia face a generational test reintegrating vast veteran populations, with stakes for social cohesion, security, and reconstruction. Ukraine may have up to 2 million veterans, many needing long‑term physical and mental‑health care in an already overstretched system; veterans themselves prioritize jobs, housing, and adequate financial support—especially for the disabled—while civilians emphasize psychological care, and the country must adapt cities, transport, and homes for accessibility to avoid isolation and emigration. Russia will likely exceed 1 million veterans, many drawn from convicts or men with pre‑existing problems, returning to intact but wary communities shaped by memories of Afghan and Chechen vets and already seeing a rise in crime; Moscow is combining expanded benefits and retraining schemes with coercive tools—filtering “problem” vets into occupied Ukraine, mercenary outfits, or prison and suppressing open discussion of abuse and war crimes—an approach that may prove unstable as public anxieties collide with official hero‑narratives.
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

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

“Ukraine makes rare advance inside ‘kill zone’,” Fabrice Deprez Financial Times, 03.17.26.

  • The FT reports that Ukrainian paratroopers and assault units have mounted a rare offensive in the “kill zone” of southeastern Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, clearing several settlements in an area where Russian forces made major gains in 2025. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and senior commanders are touting the push—launched in early February—as proof Ukraine can still conduct offensive operations four years into the full‑scale war and amid Western distraction by the Iran conflict. Kyiv claims to have regained roughly 400–435 square kilometers, though independent trackers such as Black Bird and DeepState estimate Russian losses on this sector nearer 213 square kilometers and net Ukrainian gains in February at just 37 square kilometers once Russian advances elsewhere are factored in.
  • Analysts say the operation nonetheless demonstrates Ukraine’s continued ability to exploit weak spots along the 1,000‑kilometer front using small, highly experienced “firefighter” units and an increasingly sophisticated drone ecosystem, from quadcopters that sustain frontline positions to longer‑range “middle‑strike” drones that have begun hitting targets 50–200 km behind Russian lines. Ukrainian forces also benefited from Elon Musk’s decision to deny Russian troops Starlink access. But the FT stresses that Ukraine faces a difficult year: it is emerging from its worst winter of the war with chronic manpower and air‑defense shortages, while Russia is regrouping for a summer campaign, pressing slowly toward key Donbas cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, and using spring foliage to mask assault groups from Ukrainian reconnaissance drones.

“Ukraine faces growing pressure because of the war in Iran as Russia readies a new offensive,” Associated Press/Washington Post, 03.20.26.

  • The AP reports that with U.S.-brokered peace talks “on hold due to the war in the Middle East,” Vladimir Putin is expected to “try to expand his military gains via new offensives,” while “windfall revenues from surging global oil prices are filling Moscow’s war coffers” and U.S. air‑defense stocks “are being drained quickly by Iranian attacks,” raising fears that “little will be left available for Ukraine in the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion.” NATO’s refusal to send naval assets to Hormuz and Trump’s “angry rebuke” of allies are described as “another emerging fault line that is fraught with potential repercussions for Ukraine.”

“Ukraine Is Making Home-Brew Long-Range Missiles,” Paul Hockenos, Foreign Policy, 03.19.26.

  • Hockenos writes that Ukrainian deep‑strike drones “wreak havoc almost daily on Russia,” but notes that they are “often thwarted” and that “U.S. and European missiles can degrade Russian supplies, but they are finite.” To fill the gap, he reports, Ukrainians have begun producing missiles like the Sapsan and the privately built Flamingo, which “hits targets as far away as 3,000 kilometers… while carrying payloads of up to 1,150 kilograms,” and has already struck the Votkinsk missile plant “more than 1,000 km beyond Moscow.”
  • “Until now, Russia has exploited the tyranny of distance to protect its defense industry,” George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War told Foreign Policy, but he warns that “this war is not static or stalemated. It’s dynamic. Either side could make a breakthrough.” Ihor Fedirko of the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry stresses that while Flamingos cost “less than $1 million” compared with “$1.6 million to $1.9 million” for a U.S. JASSM and can be scaled faster, “ballistic capability is among the hardest and most expensive to build” and “even if the Ukrainians manage to hit their target of a handful of missiles per day by summer, they won’t outgun Russia anytime soon,” as Hockenos concludes.

“Rethinking Ukraine’s Manpower Challenge,” Viktor Kevliuk, Olesya Favorska, Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Carnegie Endowment, 03.17.26.

  • Kevliuk, Favorska, and Zagorodnyuk write that Ukraine’s front-line shortages, “record rates of absence without leave, and growing public unease with mobilization practices” reflect “a system that is operating under extreme strain,” not “a collapse in Ukraine’s national will to fight.” They emphasize that “Ukraine’s manpower challenges are not primarily demographic,” arguing that “even after accounting for casualties, medical and other exemptions, and outmigration, Ukraine retains a substantial pool of military-age citizens: enough to fill the armed forces’ ranks,” but that coercive tactics such as “busification” and “abusive practices, legal overreach, and selective enforcement” have damaged trust and driven “considerably” rising AWOL rates.
  •  The authors stress that technology and doctrine are changing the “economics of casualties”: they cite Ukrainian assessments that integrating robotic systems can “cut losses by roughly 30%,” and note that high‑performing formations like the 3rd Assault Brigade can attract “several hundred volunteers per month,” including transfers from other units, while cutting‑edge unmanned formations such as Nemesis and Achilles preserve manpower by pushing drones and unmanned ground vehicles into roles “traditionally done by humans.” They argue that “how forces fight matters more than how many soldiers they field,” and conclude that simply lowering the draft age or enlarging the pool “may increase numbers on paper, but… risk accelerating attrition,” unless Ukraine aligns mobilization with a clear “theory of victory,” updated operating concepts, and force designs that use automation to generate “greater operational effect per soldier while reducing attrition.”

“The Follies of Predicting War,” Jo Inge Bekkevold, Foreign Policy, 03.20.26.

  • Reviewing Phillips Payson O’Brien’s War and Power: Who Wins Wars—and Why, Bekkevold notes that O’Brien opens by dissecting “the false but widespread prediction of a quick Russian victory against Ukraine in 2022,” when “not only Russian President Vladimir Putin but the vast majority of Western politicians, analysts, and commentators overestimated Russian military power and underestimated that of Ukraine.” O’Brien stresses that wars “seldom develop as planned and often go off the rails,” and insists that focusing on battles while ignoring wider political and social contexts is a key analytical flaw.
  • On Russia specifically, Bekkevold highlights O’Brien’s argument that it “does not make sense to give in to Russia’s demands for an extended sphere of influence,” and his warning that Putin has built “a political system in Russia that only feeds him with information he wants to hear,” which magnifies the risk of miscalculation. O’Brien also calls Putin’s Russia “not a great power, let alone a superpower,” despite its nukes, and sees its war in Ukraine as a cautionary tale about overestimating hard power and underestimating societal will to fight.

“Ukraine’s top drone commander wants to bleed Russia’s army dry,” The Economist, 03.22.26.

  • Ukraine’s unmanned forces chief Robert “Madyar” Brovdi has built a drone‑warfare system that aims to “bleed Russia’s army dry.” His units—about 2% of Ukraine’s manpower—now account for over a third of verified Russian casualties, according to the Economist.

Military aid to Ukraine:

“It’s time for U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine,” Thomas O. Melia’s Letter to the Editor, Washington Post, 03.17.26.

  • Thomas O. Melia argues that “the only way to stop Putin is to put boots on the ground,” insisting that “U.S. troops need to push the Russians out of Ukraine and restore the 1991 borders” rather than police “a wobbly ceasefire line that cedes to the Kremlin…19.4% of Ukrainian territory.” He urges members of Congress who think “Ukraine’s cause is just” to introduce an Authorization for Use of Military Force, saying “that would get Putin’s attention,” and dismisses sanctions debates because “Putin is not bothered by further deterioration of the Russian people’s living conditions.” In a second letter, Howard Dotson, “a son of Finland,” links Ukraine’s struggle to the Winter War, Holodomor, and Holocaust, and calls for “a new day for Russia,” envisioning Russians one day rising up, taking “this war criminal to The Hague,” and a future in which “St. Petersburg and Kyiv could even become sister cities.”

“Exits of Foreign Firms from the Russian Market Down to a Trickle,” Russia.Post, 03.17.26.

  • The report finds that “the outflow of foreign businesses from the Russian market has basically stopped,” noting that most departures happened in 2022–23 and that “selling off assets has since become nearly impossible due to tougher state-imposed conditions.” Kept (the former KPMG Russia) calculates that there were “23 exit deals in 2025, just 8% of total M&A volume,” down from 202 exit deals in 2022, and says that “in the coming years, the flow of exiting companies is expected to dry up completely.”
  • Analysts attribute the slowdown to “steadily toughened conditions for leaving”—sales must be approved by a government commission, done “at a discount of at least 60%,” and include a “voluntary contribution” of 35% of market value—while proceeds are trapped in restrictive “C-type” accounts and dividend repatriation is “rare.” At the same time, the article notes that major groups such as Nestlé, PepsiCo, Japan Tobacco International, Philip Morris, Bayer and Mars “have also been reluctant to exit the Russian market,” often justifying their continued presence by a “need to supply the Russian population with essential goods” even as they keep “a low profile” and accept growing dependence on Russian regulators and countersanctions.
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
    • “How do you get off the UK sanctions list? This billionaire wants to know,” Financial Times, 03.17.26.

“EU Must Seek Peace with Russia if Iran War Drags On—An Interview with Anatol Lieven,” Hungarian Conservative, 03.14.26.

  • Anatol Lieven warns that if the Iran war continues, Europe will pay a steep price and should “seek peace with Russia” to protect its own interests and Ukraine’s. He argues that Trump’s Iran intervention repeats past U.S. mistakes in Vietnam and Iraq—attacking a society Washington does not understand—and that a prolonged conflict will keep the Strait of Hormuz under threat, drive energy prices higher, and risk a refugee surge if Iran collapses into civil war, with Türkiye gaining leverage by “threatening to open the floodgates.”
  • Lieven explicitly links Iran, Russia, and Ukraine: as Gulf energy is disrupted, Trump has already eased sanctions enforcement on buyers of Russian energy, and if the Iran war drags on, “energy prices would rise dramatically, benefiting the Russian economy and war effort.” At the same time, he notes, more Western air‑defense systems will be diverted to the Middle East, meaning “fewer will go to Ukraine,” weakening Kyiv over time in a war of attrition and potentially enabling “a much larger victory” for Moscow. Hence his recommendation that if the Iran war is prolonged, the EU should offer sanctions relief and renewed Russian energy imports as part of a Ukraine peace deal along current lines of control—painful for Kyiv but, in his view, preferable to a scenario in which Ukraine is “one of the biggest losers” of the Iran conflict.

“Bailing Out Russia for ‘Peace’ Is a Losing Proposition,” Emma Isabella Sage and Savannah Taylor, War on the Rocks, 03.18.26.

  • Sage and Taylor argue that Russia’s proposed $14 trillion “Dmitriev package” would have the West “underwrite the very system it has spent four years trying to contain,” warning that Moscow’s economy is now “calibrated for long-term conflict,” with defense and security already “more than 38% of planned federal expenditures” and German intelligence judging that “over 50% of federal spending is related to the war.” Russian civilian industry is being “progressively cannibalized to feed military production,” they write, while “deathonomics” payouts that can give a fallen soldier’s family “over 14.5 million rubles” are now “a massive drain on government resources.” Strategically, they describe post‑Soviet Russia as locked in “a continuous cycle of territorial acquisition” in Moldova, Georgia, Crimea, and now Ukraine, where “ ‘peace’ has been restored through real Western concessions paired with unenforceable Russian promises,” and insist that reopening trade would “recreate the same vulnerabilities that weakened NATO’s deterrence posture and enabled the invasion of Ukraine.” Even a leadership change would not fix this, they contend, because “there have been too many years of purging moderates and crushing democratic sentiment for Putin to be replaced by a leader of meaningfully divergent values,” concluding that “bailing Putin out at the precise moment that Russia’s economic vulnerability becomes a viable point of leverage would cement Russia’s strategic gains from the war” and that “if the West wishes to buy peace, it should invest in weapons for Ukraine, rather than seeking an illusory peace settlement.”
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

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

“The era of U.S. dominance in economic warfare is over,” Nicholas Mulder, Financial Times, 03.18.26.

  • Nicholas Mulder argues that by shutting the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has “replicated a tactic that America has long practiced in its use of sanctions,” turning a chokepoint into “a weapon to compel its adversary to de-escalate.” “In the decades that followed the end of the cold war, America had an effective monopoly on major sanctions. That is no longer the case,” he writes, noting China’s rare‑earths counter‑measures and Iran’s oil and fertilizer blockade. The result is that “the U.S. and its allies will face hard trade-offs,” as shown by Trump’s need to “temporarily relent on its sanctions on Russian oil,” Mulder contends. He concludes that sanctions are increasingly “paving the way to violent escalation” and warns that “a world of persistent economic wars will, sooner or later, spiral into actual warfare.”

“Trump Is Trying to Bully America Into Supporting His War. It Won’t Work,” Michelle Goldberg, New York Times, 03.16.26.

  • Michelle Goldberg contrasts the intense cultural conformity that surrounded the 2003 Iraq invasion with the broad skepticism greeting Trump’s Iran war. She notes that unlike George W. Bush, Trump has failed to generate a “rally ’round the flag” effect: polls show the Iran war is less popular than any previous major U.S. conflict, his approval ratings are stagnant, and even key right-wing influencers (Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson) are split or hostile. In response, Trump and his allies have turned to overtly authoritarian tactics—threatening treason charges against media outlets, hinting at license revocations, and pressuring CNN’s new ownership—but these efforts have not cowed critics in politics or culture: Democrats are no longer intimidated by “you’re against the troops” attacks, and antiwar sentiment was openly voiced at the Oscars without meaningful backlash. Trump’s own unserious wartime behavior—golfing on weekends, fundraising off images of returning casualties—has eroded the traditional aura of the commander in chief, helping make opposition to his war a mainstream, not fringe, position.

“Trump Can’t Spin His Way Out of This War,” Editorial Board, New York Times, 03.17.26.

  • The NYT editorial board argues that Trump launched the Iran war without a coherent strategy and is now trapped between maximalist rhetoric and the hard limits of U.S. power. They credit tactical gains—crippling Iran’s air defenses, missiles, and some proxies—but say the administration has no plausible plan either for regime change (which would require ground troops Trump promised never to deploy) or for securing Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium buried under Isfahan. They also fault Trump for ignoring warnings that Tehran would move to close the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a 40% oil-price spike and forcing him into desperate measures, such as easing oil sanctions on Russia and pleading with allies (and even China) to send naval forces after having long demeaned them. The piece concludes that war is exposing the gap between Trump’s bluster and reality, and that his refusal to seek congressional authorization, plan with allies, or level with the public underscores why he “cannot be trusted with the most consequential matters of government.”

“A Fox in the Baltic: Military escalation in the Baltic region may be much closer than experts realise,” Regression, 03.19.26.

  • Re:Russia warns that a Russia–NATO clash in the Baltic “may be much closer than experts realize,” arguing that “existing Western analysis does not consider such a scenario, which is precisely why… it warrants closer attention.” The author notes that most experts assume Russia would need years to recover from the Ukraine war, but stresses that “an operation limited in military scope would not require Russia to concentrate all available forces,” and that an invasion “may not represent a subsequent phase following the war in Ukraine… but rather form part of the present confrontation.”
  • Citing Jennifer Kavanagh and Jeremy Shapiro, the report says “the main motivation that could prompt Putin to launch a military operation against a NATO member is not so much the pursuit of territorial gains as the intention to undermine confidence in the alliance,” with Moscow “betting that a limited incursion would not trigger a serious NATO response.” Atlantic Council experts Elena Davlikanova and Yevhenii Malik are quoted to similar effect: Moscow sees a small operation as “a step towards the alliance’s disintegration.”
  • The article argues that Europe’s current logic—that “the ongoing war in Ukraine delays the moment of a possible Russian attack”—could be inverted: “the Kremlin may seek to turn the threat of a large-scale military conflict in Europe into a bargaining instrument in negotiations over Ukraine,” so that “the threat could materialize significantly earlier than most experts currently expect.” Re:Russia adds that U.S. difficulties in Iran and “the refusal of European allies to assist in the Strait of Hormuz… further increase the likelihood of an escalation scenario in the Kremlin’s relations with Europe in the near term.”

“Europe Cannot Be a Military Power: Why Defense Integration Could Fracture the Continent,” Hugo Bromley, Foreign Affairs, 03.17.26.

  • Hugo Bromley argues the EU is a “peace project, not a war project” and that turning Brussels into a military “global power” in response to Trump and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would fracture Europe. Common EU defense would mean de facto transfers from northern states to high‑spending southern ones with different threat priorities, inflaming politics and empowering extremists. With Russia again threatening European territory, he contends deterrence should still rest on U.S. high‑end capabilities and flexible, intergovernmental cooperation via NATO and “minilateral” groupings, rather than EU‑run defense integration that could undermine the wider European project.

“Managing long-term confrontation with Russia: Elements of a European strategy,” Alexander Graef, European Leadership Network, 03.18.26.

  • Alexander Graef argues that “the evolving confrontation between Europe and Russia is not a temporary crisis but a long-term condition that must be managed.” Four years into the full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, he notes that European governments have mobilized “substantial military, economic, and political resources,” yet “these measures have not coalesced into a coherent strategy for governing a prolonged and adversarial relationship with Moscow beyond the war.” So far, policy has “largely relied on cost imposition: military support for Ukraine, economic sanctions, and strengthened deterrence,” an approach he says rests on “uncertain assumptions about Russia’s responsiveness to sustained pressure,” given Moscow’s “resilience, military regeneration capacity, and a willingness to absorb significant costs.”
  • Graef’s core claim is that “the central task is not to resolve rivalry in the near term, but to shape it deliberately—preserving political control, managing escalation, and sustaining European unity over time.” He proposes three interdependent pillars. 
    • First, Europe must “strengthen European political agency” by institutionalising flexible leadership formats (E3/E5/E6) inside EU and NATO structures, creating “a permanent EU channel for Russia policy… to reduce fragmentation and ensure continuity,” and designing sanctions “for leverage” with “conditional relief options in economically meaningful civilian sectors while excluding renewed strategic dependencies,” especially as a multipolar world and “shifting U.S. priorities limit Europe’s ability to rely on systemic isolation or classical containment.” 
    • Second, deterrence must become “more credible and European-led” via “a phased roadmap to reduce reliance on key U.S. enablers,” greater alignment of force development and burden‑sharing, and more systematic integration of “European nuclear deterrence… into alliance planning, consultation, and signaling.” 
    • Third, Europe needs to “build escalation-control capacity” by compartmentalizing deterrence and engagement along the border zone, “reintroduc[ing] structured military-to-military communication for risk reduction,” investing in “escalation-management infrastructure,” and promoting “strategic education to build a durable European strategic culture.”

“Belligerent and Beleaguered: Russia After the War with Ukraine,” Eugene Rumer, Carnegie Endowment, 03.2026.

  • Rumer argues that “having invaded Ukraine under the false pretext of needing to secure its western flank, Russia is poised to emerge from the war less secure, more resentful, and more threatening to Europe than before the war,” saying its threat perceptions will be shaped by “the geography of the standoff between Russia and NATO,” new long‑range weapons that “can hold at risk targets deep inside the Russian heartland,” and “changes in transatlantic relations” that are forcing Europe to rethink security without relying on Washington. He warns that “a transatlantic divorce before Europe has built up its conventional defenses and solved the problem of deterring nuclear threats from Russia without the U.S. nuclear umbrella… would create a window of opportunity for Vladimir Putin to pursue his ambitions, while hiding behind Russia’s nuclear shield,” and notes that Putin’s record of nuclear blackmail against a non‑nuclear Ukraine shows “it is a realistic possibility.”
  • In Rumer’s view, Russian nuclear saber‑rattling in the Ukraine war has underscored that “nuclear weapons remain the ultimate deterrent,” leaving Europe facing “limbo” if U.S. guarantees vanish and only French and British arsenals remain. He stresses that, even as Russia emerges “weakened, with an exhausted general population, badly depleted conventional forces, and a stagnant economy,” its worldview—rooted in spheres of influence reminiscent of the “1815 Congress of Vienna”—will continue to clash with the West’s “Europe whole and free” vision enshrined in the 1990 Charter of Paris. Any future opening by a post‑Putin leadership, he cautions, must not tempt the United States and Europe into “wishful thinking and premature conclusions,” because “it would be unrealistic to ask Europe to give up its core values and accede to Russia’s demand for a sphere of influence,” just as for Russia, accepting that vision would mean rejecting “one of the core tenets of its strategic culture.”

“Fragment of an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov,” Russian Foreign Ministry, 03.21.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Lavrov claims Russia’s foreign policy is about “defending our national interests while respecting the interests of other countries,” and contrasts this with the United States, saying the Trump administration “openly declares that they don’t want to know any international law, that they have their own morality, their own instincts… they will be guided by them.” He argues that the world is “returning… to a world where there was nothing… no international law, no Versailles system, no Yalta system,” where “might is right,” and insists that for Russia “God is not in strength, but in truth.”
  • On energy, Lavrov says the U.S. and EU are trying to “marginalize” Russia on European markets, boasting that “Russia was cut off from the ‘Nord Streams’” and that “Germany was humiliated,” while now “the Hungarians and Slovaks are fighting with their last strength” to keep “cheap, accessible energy resources” and are being told to “buy at twice the price, because Russia must be ‘punished’.” 
    He links this to Ukraine, charging that when “our American colleagues tell us: let’s settle Ukraine now… look where else you can make concessions,” the real aim is to push Russia out of global energy markets and then “come to us and say that they are for cooperation with us” only on terms that suit U.S. interests.
  • Lavrov repeatedly ties Russia’s confrontation with the West to a broader struggle over the global order, accusing Europe of trying to “entrench neocolonialism in the world” and live “at the expense of others,” while praising Russia’s own strength: “Russia is a very strong country. Strong in spirit. The strongest country in terms of its natural resources, in terms of its scientific potential,” he says, adding that “those who are weak get beaten” and that Moscow’s task is to translate that strength into “technologies… at the highest level,” including artificial intelligence, because “whoever will be the leader in the field of artificial intelligence will be the leader in the world.”
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“China is not going to bail Trump out,” Edward Luce, Financial Times, 03.17.26.

  • Edward Luce argues that Trump’s appeal for Chinese help in the Strait of Hormuz is a “black swan” that Beijing is unlikely to answer: China has huge energy interests in the Gulf but prefers to watch Washington flounder rather than risk escalation or visibly rescue Trump. With Trump postponing his planned Beijing summit and conditioning it on Chinese naval involvement he knows he won’t get, Luce says the U.S. president is drifting toward a long Iran war. Trump has better odds of pressuring NATO allies, but his unilateral strike and threats—such as suspending oil sanctions on Russia, which boosts Putin and drains Patriot stocks from Ukraine—undermine European security and make support politically toxic.

“BRICS Meets Reality in the Middle East War: It’s the latest case study in the persistent failure of transnational solidarity,” C. Raja Mohan, Foreign Policy, 03.16.26.

  • C. Raja Mohan argues that BRICS’ silence two weeks into the U.S.–Israeli war on fellow member Iran exposes the bloc’s structural incoherence: its members’ interests diverge too sharply—India has close ties to Israel; the UAE is a conservative Gulf monarchy aligned with Washington; Russia is locked in its own confrontation with the “collective West”—for any meaningful common line. The grouping has done little even for Russia since 2022, he notes, and is now a “passive spectator” as Washington bombs Iran and Tehran hits Gulf states, despite the rhetoric of forming a counterweight to U.S. power.
  • Mohan situates this failure in a broader historical pattern: grand projects of transnational solidarity—from the Comintern and pan‑Asianism to pan‑Arabism, pan‑Islamism, the Arab League, ASEAN, and Latin American groupings—fracture when national interests collide with abstract notions of unity. Whether in Arab divisions over Palestine, ASEAN’s paralysis on Chinese pressure in the South China Sea, or Latin America’s split over the U.S. seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro, governments ultimately prioritize security and prosperity at home. BRICS’ behavior over Iran and Russia, he concludes, is just the latest reminder that in a world of sovereign states, “all for one and one for all” rarely survives a real crisis.

Missile defense:

  • No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

“Israel Could Well Launch a Nuclear Strike on Iran,” Dmitri Trenin interview, Sputnik Kazakhstan, 03.20.26. Sputnik is a Russian government funded entity. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Dmitri Trenin argues that “Israel has a stockpile of nuclear weapons… several dozen units,” warheads “with a yield of several tens or a couple of hundred kilotons” that “can be used for the guaranteed destruction” of Iranian nuclear facilities. He considers it “unlikely” they would be used against cities, but warns that the consequences “could cover a significant part of Iran’s territory and even spread to neighboring countries.”
  • He predicts the war may last “from several weeks to a month,” after which the U.S. will likely exit by proclaiming that it has destroyed “100% of the Iranian fleet, 100% of the Iranian air force, 100% of Iranian air defense systems,” and announcing that “the U.S. has done its job at this stage,” while reserving the option to “return to the region and carry out the next stage of the war” if Iran’s nuclear or missile threat reemerges. Gulf states, he believes, will neither expel U.S. bases nor strike Iran themselves, as they remain dependent on Washington and fear still greater damage to their energy infrastructure and image as a “prosperous oasis” in an unstable region.

“How the world learned to love the bomb,” Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, 03.18.26.

  • Janan Ganesh argues that nuclear weapons are slipping from taboo to normal option in many capitals. “France… said this month that it would increase its stockpile of warheads,” he notes, while Poland’s leaders are “open to going nuclear,” South Korean public support for a bomb is “up to 70%,” and Saudi Arabia “might not wait” for Iran to go first. The ordeal of Ukraine, which gave up inherited Soviet nukes in 1994 only to be invaded, makes “the lesson… obvious,” he writes: “A country with dangerous neighbors should retain or acquire the ultimate deterrent.” With Trump casting doubt on U.S. guarantees and nuclear dread fading culturally, Ganesh warns that “an intellectual and even moral seal has been broken” and that future proliferation “could accelerate without surprising anyone.”

Counterterrorism:

  • See section on Syria below.

Conflict in Syria:

Cyber security/AI: 

“Ukraine Is Suddenly on the Offensive, With Help From Elon Musk,” Nikita Nikolaienko, Ian Lovett, Daria Matviichuk, Wall Street Journal, 03.20.26.

  • The reporters say that “when Elon Musk flipped the off switch on Russian forces’ Starlink internet connections in February, Ukraine’s military went on the offensive,” noting that Russian commanders “had lost access to live video of the battlefield and communications with troops” and that Ukrainian units “moved in on Russian positions with little threat from drones.” 
  • Since the start of February “Ukraine says it has retaken roughly 150 square miles of territory in the southern Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions, where Russian forces had previously been advancing rapidly. February was the first month since 2023 when Kyiv regained more territory in Ukraine than it lost, according to open-source analysts” cited in the WSJ article.
  • Front-line soldiers credit the cutoff of the Russian units’ access to Starlink with crippling Russian C2 and drone operations. “That gap between detecting the target and reacting has become critical for them,” Oleksiy Serdiuk of the Timur Special Forces unit says, while another officer, Sever, recounts that with Starlink, Russian command “tightly controlled units” by demanding video proof soldiers hadn’t deserted, but “without Starlink, those soldiers are isolated.” Although Moscow is scrambling to improvise mesh networks and alternative satellite links, Michael Kofman argues that “Starlink was a cheap and effective solution,” and Ukrainian troops estimate Russia has only recovered “around 60%” of its previous coordination. Based on analysis of data from ISW, RM assesses that following Russia’s loss of access to Starlink, Russia has gained 21 square miles of territorial control in Ukraine according to RM’s analysis of the period Feb. 3–March 17, 2026—the closest to the Feb. 1–March 20, 2026 period analyzed by WSJ. In contrast, data posted by Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group, which is affiliated with Ukraine’s MoD, reports the “total temporarily occupied” by Russia increased by a net total of 33 sq miles in the period of Feb. 1–March 20, 2026.1 In addition, according to a site that posts estimates of changes of territorial control based on reporting by Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group, the area of the Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia increased by 72 square miles in the period of Feb. 1–March 20, 2026.2

 “Starlink Has Privatized Geopolitics,” Robert Muggah and Misha Glenny, Foreign Policy, 03.20.26.

  • Muggah and Glenny argue that “Starlink is far more than a commercial connectivity service. It is strategic infrastructure that increasingly shapes how wars are fought,” stressing that “a private company is now a gatekeeper in orbit, helping decide who connects as well as where, under what conditions, and with what technical constraints.” On Ukraine, they write that after Russia’s full‑scale invasion “Starlink terminals became operational infrastructure in a war defined by drones, distributed command, and rapid targeting cycles,” and that “without resilient mobile bandwidth, Ukrainian forces could not transmit drone feeds, coordinate logistics, or sustain the decentralized fire-support networks that have characterized the conflict.”
  • The authors note that this dependence immediately created an “attack surface:” “Russian forces reportedly obtained Starlink access through third-party channels,” serious enough that “SpaceX and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry imposed authentication controls,” a sequence they say shows that “decisions made inside a company by engineers applying commercial access policies altered the tactical balance in an active war.” They also highlight reports that in early 2025 “U.S. negotiators allegedly threatened to limit Ukraine’s access to Starlink” and recall that in 2022 Elon Musk “reportedly declined to enable Starlink coverage near Russian-occupied Crimea,” concluding that when a supplier can decide which operations a front-line state conducts, “the relationship has ceased to be commercial. It is a delegation of sovereignty, a strategic function exercised by an unaccountable executive.”
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Energy exports from CIS:

“A Tight Spot: Challenges Facing the Russian Oil Sector Through 2035,” Sergey Vakulenko, Carnegie Endowment, 03.2026.

  • Vakulenko notes that before the Iran war, Urals crude had slumped to about $40 per barrel—levels comparable to past crisis years (2009, 2016, 2020)—and that in December 2025, at a Urals price of $39.20 per barrel, Russian oil companies actually retained roughly $24 per barrel after taxes, with the state taking about $15. He calculates that under the current tax regime “the state collects 58.4% of all revenue above $13.5/bbl,” and that at low prices of $20–$25 per barrel, companies would still net $15.90–$17.70 per barrel after upstream taxes—enough to cover operating costs and some development drilling—whereas “state oil revenues at such price levels would be $4–$7 per barrel… essentially negligible compared to the approximately $25/bbl assumed in the 2026 budget.”
  • On costs and resilience, Vakulenko estimates that “reasonable” full in‑field operating costs for most Russian brownfield production are about $9 per barrel, plus $4 per barrel for transport and $3 per barrel for development drilling, implying full‑cycle pre‑tax costs below $20–$25 per barrel. Even at a realized export price of $20–$25, he argues, production is “unlikely to stop; it will simply decline at its natural depletion rate,” with new drilling becoming uneconomic only when FOB prices fall below roughly $27–$30 per barrel. He also stresses how ruble dynamics have eroded real revenues: in 2010 constant prices, the ruble value of a barrel of Urals crude fell from about 3,000 rubles in the early 2010s to just 1,214 rubles in December 2025, meaning that “the domestic purchasing power of revenues of the Russian oil sector… at the beginning of 2026 was just 40% of what it was fifteen years ago.”
  • Looking ahead, Vakulenko judges that Russia’s own “base case” energy strategy implies a slow but steady decline from about 8 million barrels per day by 2030 to below 7 million barrels per day by 2035, with current trends pointing to an average decline of roughly 3% per year over the next decade. He notes that Russian companies drilled 7,610 production wells in 2024, with average well length rising from 3,473 meters in 2018 to 3,993 meters in 2025, and that the number of active frac fleets increased from 159 in 2022 to 188 in 2024—evidence, in his view, that “Russia’s oil industry currently has both the technical capability and the resource base to sustain or even grow production,” but is being held back by OPEC+ quotas, high domestic capital costs near 20%, sanctions, and an investment climate that makes large frontier projects uneconomic. Even if production were halved over eighteen to twenty years to around 5 million barrels per day, he concludes, Russia would “remain both one of the world’s largest producers and one of its largest crude exporters,” though with far less fiscal room to sustain its military and global ambitions.

“Donald Trump’s generous gift: Will extra billions save Russia’s budget?” Maksim Blant, Republic, 03.21.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Blant argues that the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have become “the most generous gift of President Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin,” writing that “only in March the Russian budget may additionally receive up to $5 billion,” thanks to soaring oil and gas prices. Citing Bloomberg data, he notes that in the week ending March 15 “the average daily export of Russian oil… almost reached 4 million barrels,” with revenues jumping from “less than $1.2 billion to a little over $2 billion,” which he calls “a record since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.”
  • Yet Blant insists that “even if we assume… the Russian budget in March will receive $5 billion more than in February,” this “will not radically change the situation,” pointing out that the federal deficit for January–February 2026 was 3.45 trillion rubles, “an absolute record,” and that to plug holes Moscow is resorting to ruble devaluation and manipulating the budget rule. He stresses that Trump’s temporary sanctions waivers, which allow countries such as India to buy stranded Russian crude, show how Washington’s Iran policy directly “compensates for under-received oil and gas revenues” and eases pressure from Western sanctions, even as Russia remains structurally dependent on high energy prices and vulnerable to U.S. and EU efforts “hunting” its shadow fleet and squeezing it out of markets in India and China.

“How the Iran war is an economic world war,” Emily Peck, Axios, 03.17.26.

  • Emily Peck describes the Iran war as a de facto “economic world war,” noting that Iran’s effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz—through which about 20% of the world’s oil and related products flow—has triggered severe energy shortages and emergency measures across import‑dependent countries, especially in Asia. With crude supply cuts expected to approach 12 million barrels per day, JPMorgan analysts say the only real adjustment mechanism is a “comparable reduction in consumption,” leading governments to ration energy, close or shorten operations at schools and offices, and impose price caps or controls on fuel. Bangladesh has closed universities; South Korea has capped gas prices for the first time in nearly 30 years; Thailand is pushing work‑from‑home; and the Philippines and Pakistan have moved to four‑day workweeks or school closures as they struggle with higher prices and constrained supplies of oil, diesel, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas.
  • Peck situates this in a series of shocks that have battered the global economy, explicitly linking the Iran war to “a turbulent decade” that already includes the pandemic and “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting inflation,” as well as Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. She zooms in on India, where shortages and hoarding of LPG have forced hotels in Mumbai to shut down and the city of Pune to suspend gas‑based cremations—described by one restaurateur as “a second COVID-19 lockdown.” While Asia is hardest hit, Europe also faces rising gas and electricity prices, prompting the EU to consider a gas price cap and Japan to launch its largest‑ever release from national oil reserves. Longer term, China could emerge as a relative winner: it holds massive oil reserves, can substitute coal in some sectors, and stands to benefit as high oil prices accelerate global demand for renewables, where Chinese firms dominate. Summing up the broader impact, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. laments, “We are victims of a war that is not of our choosing,” reflecting how a U.S.–Iran conflict now joins Russia’s war in Ukraine as a major driver of worldwide economic pain.

“Britain’s chancellor starts a tilt towards Europe,” The Economist, 03.18.26.

Climate change:

  • No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

  • No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“U.S. Intel on Russia: Less Attention, But Greater Concern Over Escalation,” Simon Saradzhyan, Russia Matters, 03.19.26.

  • Comparing the U.S. intelligence community’s newly-released Annual Threat Assessment-2026 with the previous edition of this document reveals a change in how this community approaches analyzing Russia and other countries that negatively impact U.S. national security. While the 2025 assessment had separate chapters on China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, the 2026 document, which was presented on March 18, includes chapters on regions, such as Europe-Eurasia, Asia and the Middle East rather than country profiles. The 2025 assessment looked at Russia through perhaps, a more comprehensive analytical lens, emphasizing the broad‑spectrum threats posed by Russia to U.S. global interests. By contrast, the 2026 assessment of Russia is more dispersed across thematic and regional categories. The sheer amount of space the annual document dedicates to examining Russia has also diminished. While the 2025 document included 152 references to Russia, the 2026 document included only 99 such references. The three other countries to which the 2025 document dedicated separate chapters, (China, Russia, Iran1 and North Korea,) also saw their number of references decrease in the 2026 document. References to China and its leaders declined from 148 in 2025 to 98 in 2026; references to Iran decreased from 65 explicit mentions in 2025 to 51 in 2026; and references to North Korea and its leader fell from 59 in 2025 to 41 in 2026. Unsurprisingly, both assessments point to cooperation within this quartet as a cause for major concern for the United States.
  • Several other changes stand out in the 2026 document compared to its predecessor. Crucially, Russia-related escalation risks are sharpened, evolving from “unintended escalation” in 2025 to explicit concern about both inadvertent and deliberate escalation, including a direct conflict with NATO, in the 2026 document. In fact, “the most dangerous threat posed by Russia to the U.S. is an escalatory spiral in an ongoing conflict such as Ukraine or a new conflict that led to direct hostilities, including nuclear exchanges,” according to the 2026 document.2 However, while not ruling out a direct conflict, the 2026 document contains no forecasts of when Russia may enter a war with NATO of the kind I catalogued last year.3
  • Some of the 2025 document’s key Russia-related propositions have undergone no drastic changes, however, in the 2026 document. For instance, both assessments posit that Russia is gaining “the upper hand” in the war against Ukraine, the number of references to which decreased from 41 in ATA-2025 to 30 in ATA-2026 (including references to its leadership). In addition, both documents claim that Russia’s losses have not undermined its battlefield capabilities in the war against Ukraine, with the 2026 document asserting that “even with wartime attrition, Russia’s ground forces have grown” and that “despite recruitment challenges, Russia has regularly generated sufficient personnel.” Importantly, the 2026 document assesses that “Moscow almost certainly remains confident that it will prevail on the battlefield in Ukraine and force a settlement on its terms.”

“Robert Mueller, former FBI director who led Trump inquiry, dies at 81,” Aime Williams, Financial Times, 03.21.26.

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Understanding Russia’s wartime economy and why it matters for Euro-Atlantic security,” Sinikka Parviainen, European Leadership Network, 03.2026.

  • Parviainen argues that “economic strain can narrow the Kremlin’s strategic options, but it does not make the regime less dangerous,” warning that “fiscal pressure may intensify the incentive to seek a rapid military outcome before the costs of war become politically unmanageable.” Russia’s post‑2022 growth was “never organic” but driven by fiscal injections “worth over 10% of GDP,” creating a “two track economy” in which war‑linked sectors have grown “nearly 50%” since 2021 while civilian industries managed only “around eight%,” she writes. Labor and capital are “exhausted,” with wages rising faster than productivity and a “historic low” 2% unemployment masking demographic decline, mobilization and emigration.
  • Sanctions and “falling oil prices dealt a double blow in 2025,” Parviainen notes, with Rosneft’s profits plunging “70%” and Urals crude trading at a “29 USD/bbl” discount to Brent. The 2026 budget, built on “unrealistic assumptions on domestic tax collection and oil prices,” will likely yield a deficit wider than the planned “1.6% of GDP,” pushing up borrowing costs as the liquid National Wealth Fund falls “below two% of GDP.”
  • “Russia does not face imminent economic collapse,” Parviainen cautions; instead it confronts “increasingly difficult trade offs,” able to “maintain the war, but only by sacrificing the prosperity of its civilian economy, increasing political repression, and narrowing its prospects for future development.” Euro‑Atlantic governments, she concludes, must “keep pressure on energy revenues,” “close sanctions loopholes,” and “not mistake strain for collapse,” because “the regime retains meaningful capacity to adapt, repress dissent, and redirect resources.”

“Populist Strongmen Are Winning the Long Game,” Adrian Wooldridge, Bloomberg, 03.20.26.

  • Wooldridge calls Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping “the greatest players of the long game,” writing that Putin decided “the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century, and that the expansion of the liberal order was a mortal threat to Mother Russia’s interests,” and “devoted himself to reversing both processes, building up his military and securing his ‘near abroad.’” He argues that such strongmen thrive in an era of “frenzy and fragmentation,” because “if you can keep your focus when all about you are losing theirs, yours is the Earth and everything that is in it.”
  • Putin’s major mistake, Wooldridge says, was “underestimating Ukraine’s determination to survive,” but he contends that Putin and Xi “recognized that America’s overreach, after the end of the Cold War, represented an opportunity for rebalancing,” and that Trump’s current campaign against Iran “feels like revenge for the humiliation of the hostage-taking of the late 1970s,” underscoring how these leaders’ long-standing obsessions now shape the global order.

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

Defense and aerospace:

“Russia’s Expanding Robotic Sea Capabilities,” Nurlan Aliyev, Center for Maritime Strategy, 03.18.26.

  • Aliyev writes that “Moscow is attempting to integrate these unmanned systems into a broader concept for maritime dominance, combining offensive, defensive, and dual-use functions,” and notes that Russia now fields “a growing mix of surface and deep-sea platforms designed for reconnaissance, seabed work, and military operations,” with their “primary operating environments” in “the Arctic, the North Atlantic, and the Baltic Sea.” He emphasizes that “roughly 70% of Russia’s autonomous underwater vehicles are used for military purposes,” with only “about 14% employed in the offshore oil and gas sector and 10% in scientific research,” and stresses that “almost every new Russian underwater platform is engineered for intended duality,” so that technologies “developed for industry or science can be quickly adapted for defense.”
  •  On undersea surveillance, Aliyev describes the secret “Harmony” project as “an underwater sensor network deployed in the Barents Sea,” consisting of “sonar arrays deployed in an arc stretching from Murmansk to Novaya Zemlya and onward to Alexandra Land,” and says Harmony “improves Russia’s ability to detect Western submarines, enabling its own nuclear-armed submarines to move to and from port with minimal risk of detection or interference.” He adds that investigative findings suggest components may also be used “for guiding Russian underwater vehicles,” supporting “seabed surveillance and potential sabotage operations,” with specialized robots placing “high-power sonar stations on the seabed” and relaying data to command centers via satellite.
  •  Aliyev also highlights Russia’s export ambitions and structural constraints. Moscow, he writes, plans to sell AUVs “as finished products” to countries such as “Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, and Indonesia,” license production to “Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and Thailand,” and pursue joint projects with “Brazil, South Africa, China, India, and Malaysia,” initially targeting “light-class AUVs, where entry barriers are lower and demand is growing.” Yet he warns that “Russia’s unmanned sea sector faces structural obstacles,” including “no unified regulatory framework, weak Artificial Intelligence development, technological difficulties in producing systems for harsh marine conditions, and limited demand from buyers,” and concludes that although Russia is “advancing its unmanned sea systems for both military and civilian use,” progress will be “uneven, delayed, and primarily focused on meeting the needs of the Navy,” with foreign and security policy tensions and sanctions slowing integration into the global market.

 “Hidden Mobilization of Students” in ” in “Bulletin No. 6 (180) 2026,” Tatyana Stanovaya, R.Politik, 03.23.26.

  • Stanovaya writes that Russia’s student recruitment drive is a “second” or “quiet mobilization” aimed at filling “growing personnel shortages in technologically specialized units without resorting to a politically risky new round of mass mobilization.” Instead of broad conscription, the state is conducting “targeted recruitment into the unmanned systems forces,” focusing on technically skilled youth, “including women,” and expanding from elite STEM universities to “the wider student population, including those at risk of academic dismissal.” Signed contracts are “effectively indefinite,” and “service in the unmanned systems troops is not guaranteed,” with recruits potentially reassigned to “assault infantry” after a three‑month “probation period,” the author notes.
  • According to media and activist reporting cited in the piece, the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Science and Higher Education have imposed quotas—“109 students by April” at one pedagogical university, “two students every month” per faculty at another—and circulated manuals obliging administrations to report on “the work carried out.” Students are offered “3 to 3.4 million rubles” upfront and about “210,000 rubles” a month, but face “pressure and coercion,” including “the threat of expulsion” and public shaming.
  • Strategically, the drive is “less about quantity than about building a specialized human resource for technology‑driven warfare,” intended to staff rapidly expanding “unmanned systems forces” that the Defense Ministry wants to grow to “210,000 by 2030.” Even if only “5,000–15,000” students sign up this year—“a small share” of Russia’s monthly intake of 30,000–40,000 contract soldiers—the campaign aims to improve “UAV operations, FPV drones and long‑range strike systems, such as Shahed‑type loitering munitions,” embedding drone warfare deeper into Russia’s military structure.
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:
  • See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

“Expanded meeting of the Prosecutor General Office’s Board,” Vladimir Putin, Kremlin.ru, 03.19.26. Clues from Russian views

  • Putin opens by stressing how central the prosecution service has become to Russia’s war‑time governance, noting that “more than seven million people—7.7 million, to be exact—applied for assistance to the prosecutor’s office in 2025.” He says prosecutors have helped restore “the economic and social rights of a significant number of citizens… including participants in the special military operation,” and orders that “the protection of human rights remains the central focus of prosecutorial activity,” especially “labour and social rights,” wage arrears, and compensation for those in border regions “who have lost their homes and property due to attacks by the Kiev regime.”
  • On corruption and the defense sector, Putin warns that “the number of corruption-related crimes increased by 12.3% over the past year,” and that offenses in the defense industry rose by “6.1%,” saying this reflects both better reporting and “the expansion of funding and workload in the sector.” He insists it is “essential to ensure strict oversight of funds directed towards state defense procurement and the expansion of the military-industrial complex” and to “continuously monitor product quality and strict compliance… with industrial safety regulations,” arguing that Russia’s security and export prospects depend on maintaining a “balance between price and quality.”
  • He repeatedly links prosecutors’ tasks to the war against Ukraine, calling for “utmost attention” to issues raised by “participants in the special military operation and their family members” and demanding that the assistance system be “transparent, comprehensible, and accessible… to reach every individual without fail.” Special thanks are reserved for those serving “in Donbass, Novorossiya, and the border regions,” who, he says, “under very challenging circumstances… are doing everything possible to maintain law and order” and “reinforce people’s trust in the power of our state and the law.”

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“Post-War Scenarios for Russia: Is a normalization of foreign policy possible?” Mikhail Troitskiy, Re:Russia, 03.18.26.

  • Mikhail Troitskiy outlines four post‑war scenarios for Russia and assesses when genuine foreign‑policy “normalization” with the West might be possible. 
  • In scenarios 1 and 2—Russia either prevailing in Ukraine or clearly failing to meet its war aims but maintaining internal stability—the security services retain control, sanctions are only partially eased, anti‑Western rhetoric continues, and incentives to offer real guarantees (territorial concessions, compensation to Ukraine, doctrinal renunciation of revisionism, serious arms‑control steps) remain weak; at best, Moscow might trade limited concessions for selective sanctions relief while remaining a semi‑closed, repressive state. 
  • Scenario 3 sees Russia emerging from the war in a relatively strong external position but sliding into intra‑elite turmoil, with “moderate” and hard‑line factions vying for power and covertly seeking Western or Chinese backing; here, some incentives for partial normalization emerge but are constrained by regime continuity and Western reluctance to be seen as engineering regime change. 
  • Only in Scenario 4—military failure combined with a deep internal crisis and at least partial displacement of the core pro‑war leadership—does Troitskiy see a real opening: a new, more pragmatic coalition might pursue a two‑stage normalization strategy, first signaling a break with Putinism (free elections under international supervision, public renunciation of nuclear coercion and revisionism, negotiations on territory and compensation to Ukraine, applications to rejoin European institutions and restart arms‑control talks) and then actually implementing these commitments (phased territorial return under monitoring, use of frozen assets for reparations, doctrinal changes, enforceable legal protections for foreign investment). 

“From Vienna’s rooftops, the Kremlin is listening in,” Financial Times, 03.17.26.

  • The FT reports that Russia has rebuilt Vienna into one of its main signals‑intelligence hubs in the West, using large satellite‑dish arrays on multiple diplomatic sites—including the Russian UN mission complex (“Russencity”), the embassy near the Orthodox cathedral, a cultural center, and other state‑owned buildings. Austrian and Western officials say many dishes don’t point toward Moscow but toward commercial and governmental satellites over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, likely to intercept NATO‑state and international‑organization traffic.
  • Austria, formally neutral and long wary of expulsions, still hosts about 500 Russian diplomats, perhaps a third of them intelligence officers. Domestic intelligence (DSN) warns these SIGINT stations pose a “significant security risk,” but espionage is hard to prosecute under Austrian law unless it directly targets Austrian interests. As a result, Vienna has become a relatively permissive operating environment: Western services closely monitor Russia’s rooftop activity and share what they learn, preferring to “watch rather than act” while Russia uses the city as a listening post on NATO, the Middle East, and Africa.
  • See this link/these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Ukraine:

“Ukraine and the EU Need a Fresh Start: ‘Membership lite’ could clear the hurdles to Kyiv’s EU accession,” Ivan Nagornyak and Fredrik Wesslau, Foreign Policy, 03.17.26.

  • Nagornyak and Wesslau argue the EU’s traditional, slow enlargement model is ill‑suited to a war‑torn Ukraine that has “the strongest army in Europe” and is central to Europe’s security as Russia vows to destroy the European order and U.S. backing looks less assured. They propose a “membership lite” approach—phased rights and obligations tied to reforms—as the only realistic way to reconcile geopolitical urgency with political and fiscal constraints inside the EU.
  • They outline three options: a deepened association agreement (easier for Brussels but least attractive to Kyiv); a signed accession treaty with delayed entry into force and gradual integration (“accession‑in‑waiting”); or ambitious treaty change to create a formal second tier (politically unlikely). Whichever path is chosen, they insist Ukraine must gain an early, meaningful voice in EU decision‑making—especially on foreign/security policy and key economic rules—or risk disillusionment and lost reform momentum at a time when Russia’s war makes anchoring Ukraine to Europe a strategic imperative.

“How Ukraine and Europe got caught in a geopolitical lovers’ tiff,” Charlemagne, The Economist, 03.18.26.

  • Charlemagne writes that after four years of “almost spousal solidarity,” Ukraine and its European partners are now in “a patch of conjugal bickering,” with “sparks… flown over Russian oil, which the European Union continues to import… in a way that authorities in Kyiv equate to betrayal,” and over Ukraine’s EU bid as it “edges—slowly—closer to reality.” The columnist notes that while Trump’s Iran war “is swelling Russia’s oil revenues,” it was in Davos that tensions first surfaced, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy derided Europe as a “salad of small and middle powers” that “loves to discuss the future but avoids taking action today,” a jab that left “many a Euro-wallah quietly fuming.”
  • The piece highlights January’s Druzhba pipeline dispute, explaining that Zelenskyy “has all but refused to fix the pipeline, arguing that proceeds from oil sales fuel the Kremlin’s war machine,” which “infuriated Hungary,” whose Viktor Orban keeps importing cheap Russian crude under an EU exemption and has used the spat “to block the finalisation of the €90bn package” for Kyiv. When Brussels linked aid to Ukrainian co‑operation on Druzhba, Zelenskyy blasted this as “blackmail” and joked that he might give Orban’s address to Ukrainian soldiers, remarks that drew “a public rebuke from the European Commission.” Yet Charlemagne concludes that “there is, for now, no question of a broader rift between Ukraine and Europe,” and suggests that “if one were to develop one day, this is how it would start.”

“Rule of Law in Ukraine—More Than Just Fighting Corruption,” Susan Stewart, SWP, 03.19.26. Machine-translated from German.

  • Susan Stewart argues that recent scandals show “the Russian war of aggression has not put an end to corruption in the country,” and that corruption is “a symptom of a governance model that still does not meet the requirements of the rule of law.” The July 2025 law that “largely disempowered” two key anti‑corruption bodies—rolled back only after protests—revealed that “the political leadership is still not consistently committed to rule‑of‑law procedures,” she writes.
  • Operation “Midas” at Energoatom, which toppled ministers and forced Andriy Yermak’s resignation, did not change the system: appointments were driven by “popularity… loyalty to the president, expertise and networks,” not integrity, Stewart notes. She contends that an oligarchic model based on “non‑transparent symbiosis of politics and business” still shapes courts, parties and media, and that war has increased corruption risks by boosting aid flows and reducing transparency.
  • For EU accession, “a transformation of this system will be necessary,” Stewart insists, calling for a “holistic approach” that strengthens separation of powers, reforms parties and legal education, and moves beyond “oligarchic pluralism” in the media.

“To tilt Hungarian election, Russians proposed staging assassination attempt,” Catherine Belton, Washington Post, 03.21.26.

  • Belton reports that in an internal strategy paper obtained by European intelligence, officers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, alarmed by “plummeting public support for Prime Minister Viktor Orban,” proposed “the staging of an assassination attempt on Viktor Orban” as a “Gamechanger” to “fundamentally alter the entire paradigm of the election campaign.” The operatives wrote that such an incident would “shift the perception of the campaign out of the rational realm of socioeconomic questions into an emotional one, where the key themes will become state security and the stability and defense of the political system,” explicitly citing the July 2024 attack on Donald Trump as a model. Although “there have been no physical attacks on Orban,” Belton argues the proposal underscores “how high the stakes are for Moscow in the Hungarian race,” given that Orban’s friendly ties to Russia have given the Kremlin “a strategic foothold inside NATO and the European Union.”
  • The article details a broader Russian campaign to keep Orban in power. One Western official tells Belton, “Orban has been one of Russia’s best assets… it is hard to imagine that the Russians would not be standing ready to assist if things go sideways.” She cites European security sources who say Kremlin‑backed narratives are being funneled through embassy counselor Tigran Garibian, who “regularly holds meetings with pro-government Hungarian journalists to give them tasks and instructions,” and that three GRU‑linked operatives have arrived in Hungary as part of “contingency planning… to cast doubt on the integrity of the vote.” In the SVR paper, operatives urge Orban to present himself as a “space for stability, predictability and long-term development” and to paint opposition leader Péter Magyar and his Tisza party as “the party of war” and “puppet” of Brussels supporting Ukraine. Belton notes that for years Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto “made regular phone calls during breaks at E.U. meetings” to brief Sergei Lavrov, such that “every single E.U. meeting for years has basically had Moscow behind the table,” and that Russia’s interference now comes as Orban blocks a €90 billion EU loan for Kyiv while accusing Ukraine of halting Russian oil supplies and plotting attacks on his family.

“Hating Ukraine Is Viktor Orban’s Reelection Strategy,” Ivan L. Nagy, Foreign Policy, 03.19.26.

  • Nagy reports that after a poll showed Fidesz trailing Peter Magyar’s Tisza party by 20 points, Viktor Orban “almost immediately… accused Ukraine of plotting an attack on Hungarian energy infrastructure and ramped up his publicly funded billboard campaign against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” with slogans such as “Don’t let Zelenskyy have the last laugh” and “Our message to Brussels: We won’t pay!” He notes that on the same weekend “his government blocked the European Union’s $105 billion aid package to Ukraine, as well as new European sanctions against Russia,” and that Orban halted fuel exports to Ukraine and staged a prisoner‑of‑war deal with Putin that Kyiv called “a gross violation of international humanitarian law,” moves Nagy frames as “a clear escalation of Orban’s already rampant hate campaign against Ukraine and Zelenskyy.”
  • According to Nagy, Orban’s goal is to “recast the election as an existential threat from which he’s saving the nation” by painting Fidesz as “the peace party and the opposition as warmongers,” a message that “turned out to be Fidesz’s most potent” in 2022 and that he is now trying to revive. Nagy notes that when Zelenskyy recently snapped back—saying he believed Orban would lose and warning that “we will give the address of this person to our armed forces, to our guys” if Hungary blocked aid—“his words had already given Orban long-needed political ammo,” allowing Fidesz to “rebuil[d] its entire campaign on the Ukrainian president’s threats,” even as this strategy deepens Hungary’s isolation and “puts Hungary’s next government in an increasingly difficult foreign-policy position” toward both Ukraine and the wider Western bloc.

“Why Viktor Orbán Is Demonizing Ukraine,” David Kirichenko, Alexander J. Motyl, National Interest, 03.20.26.

  • Kirichenko and Motyl argue that as Hungary’s April 12 elections near and Viktor Orbán faces “growing political pressure and slipping support in the polls,” he has “escalate[d] rhetoric against Ukraine while leaning more heavily on Russia,” trying to frame Ukraine as Hungary’s “principal ‘existential threat.’” They note that Orbán “began openly threatening to use force against Ukraine” over Druzhba pipeline disruptions, blocked a €90 billion EU loan package for Kyiv, and used the detention of Ukrainian bank couriers as leverage, while pro‑government media pushed AI‑generated images of detained Ukrainians that investigators tie to “bot networks linked to Russian disinformation operations.”
  • The authors write that demonizing Ukraine is also a way to demonize “Ukraine’s main supporter, the European Union,” and to play a “revanchist card” over Transcarpathia’s history, all while siding with “Russian President Vladimir Putin” and absorbing Kremlin narratives. Citing VSquare, they say European security officials believe “the Kremlin has deployed political operatives to help ensure Orbán’s reelection,” overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko and GRU-linked teams operating from Russia’s embassy in Budapest. Yet, they note, opposition leader Péter Magyar “continues to lead,” in part because he has crafted a profile that “criticiz[es] Russia while at the same time opposing Ukraine’s fast-track accession to the EU,” appealing simultaneously to Orbán’s opponents and some of his base.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Iran’s Northern Neighbors Are Facing Fallout From the War, Too,” Zaur Shiriyev, Carnegie Endowment, 03.20.26.

  • Shiriyev writes that as U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran enter their third week, “the shockwaves are already racing across its northern frontier, placing Armenia and Azerbaijan on the front line of regional instability.” He notes that on March 5 “a drone launched from Iranian territory hit the airport and a school” in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave, triggering sharp rhetoric before “the crisis de-escalated almost as quickly” after a presidential call, which he sees as Baku’s attempt “to keep the incident from spiraling” because Nakhchivan’s links “depend heavily on transit through Iran.” Economically, he calculates that a sustained $20–$25 rise in Brent “would generate an annual export windfall of roughly $6 billion to $7.5 billion,” but warns that higher prices will also “feed imported inflation” and that “a potential refugee flow from Iran poses an additional risk.”
  • For Armenia, Shiriyev argues that the war “presents a very different set of challenges,” disrupting trade through its “only open southern route” while also creating incentives for “more structural cooperation with Turkey and Azerbaijan,” including growing Armenian imports of Azerbaijani oil products that “could gain strategic importance.” Politically, he says the conflict may bolster Nikol Pashinyan’s “Real Armenia” narrative of “good-neighborly relations” and “gradual distancing from Russia,” since “Russia’s allies are being targeted one by one, yet tangible support from the Kremlin has largely been limited to diplomatic signaling,” which “reinforces the strategic rationale for distancing Armenia from Russia” and weakens pro‑Russian opposition forces. Shiriyev concludes that projects such as the U.S.-backed TRIPP corridor linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan through Armenia—and “much else in the South Caucasus—will hinge on developments inside Iran.”

“How to Understand Kazakhstan’s New Constitution,” Michael Rossi, National Interest, 03.20.26.

  • Rossi argues that the referendum is “best understood as an effort to strengthen state capacity, streamline governance, and reduce internal friction ahead of the next political cycle,” noting that in a region facing “external pressures—from the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine to volatility in global energy markets and shifting transport routes—this emphasis on institutional coherence is strategically significant.” He stresses that U.S.–Kazakhstan cooperation in “energy, critical minerals, and transport… depend[s] on continuity,” since these investments run on “timelines measured in decades, not electoral cycles,” and says the key question for Washington is Kazakhstan’s “ability to act predictably and execute policy over time.”
  • One major change, he writes, is that “the move to a unicameral parliament… reduce[s] the number of veto points in the legislative process,” which “matters because it increases the likelihood that agreements reached at the executive level can be translated into law and implemented without prolonged internal delays.” Rossi highlights the restoration of the vice presidency as a way to “reduce these risks” around succession, observing that “in many emerging markets, the greatest source of uncertainty is political succession,” and that by formalizing a pathway, “Kazakhstan’s revised system appears designed to reduce these risks.”
  • Rossi concludes that “the constitutional reforms suggest an attempt to reinforce precisely those attributes: continuity, predictability, and coordinated state action,” and ties this directly to the wider strategic picture, writing that “the Ukraine War has reshaped regional dynamics” and that in this context the question for the United States is “whether Kazakhstan can act as a stable, capable, and strategically autonomous partner in a region where such partners are limited.” For Washington, he argues, “interests rather than institutional preferences will ultimately shape U.S. policy,” and those interests—“energy security, critical minerals, transport connectivity, and regional balance”—all point toward engaging a Kazakhstan that is trying to “sustain an independent foreign policy” while balancing Russia, China, and the West.

“Lukashenko Jailed Her in Belarus, but She Wants the World to Talk to Him,” Valerie Hopkins, New York Times, 03.20.26.

  • Hopkins profiles Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava, who spent “five years, three months and six days in prison” after helping lead the 2020 protests against Aleksandr Lukashenko and was freed in a U.S.-brokered deal. “I won not just because I didn’t break, but because neither hate nor anger ever took root in me,” Kalesnikava says, insisting that she “did not accept these rules of the game of hate and aggression, rudeness and violence.”
  • Despite being jailed and kept in near-total isolation, Kalesnikava now argues that Western isolation of Lukashenko is “misguided,” because it “driv[es] him more firmly into Russia’s orbit.” She supports engagement that “turns Belarus toward Europe and the Western world,” warning that “Belarus’s dependence on Russia undermines European security” and that if Europe stays closed to Belarusians, “an entire generation will grow up with no personal experience of European culture or democratic values,” leaving their view of the West “shaped entirely by propaganda” and “effectively losing them to Russia.” “When conversation stops, the room for war begins,” she tells Hopkins.

Footnotes

  1. According to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group, “total temporarily occupied” by Russia was 116,419 sq km (44950 sq miles) on Feb. 1. On March 20, “total temporarily occupied” by Russia was 116,505 sq km (44983 sq miles).
  2. According to the site Russia “occupied” 116,418 sq km (44,949 sq mi) on Feb. 1, 2026. On March 20, Russia “occupied” 116,605 sq km (45,021 sq miles), according to the site.

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 agents were used in production of this digest.

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

Slider photo: Visit of the President of Ukraine to the hospital of the Rivne region, July 30, 2024. Courtesy of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

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