Russia Analytical Report, April 6–13, 2026

3 Ideas to Explore

  1. From the Kremlin’s perspective, Iran “is something close to irreplaceable,” a partner that “has generated costs for America without requiring Russian exposure,” Nicole Grajewski argues in NYT. Unlike Bashar Assad’s Syria, which Vladimir Putin ultimately allowed to fall once “the cost of saving a client… exceeded what he was worth,” Iran can “exert pressure on the United States in ways that Russia, bogged down in Ukraine, cannot,” she argues. If the Islamic Republic collapses, “no other country in Russia’s orbit can fill its role,” argues this Sciences Po professor. Meanwhile, WaPo’s David Ignatius has spoken with people close to the U.S.-Iranian negotiations in Pakistan to conclude that the Islamabad impasse won’t necessarily mean a return to war.1 Trump administration officials now see three possible scenarios, according to Ignatius: “First, the regime could be overthrown, an outcome they think is more likely to occur once the bombing has stopped than before; second, [Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher] Ghalibaf… could decide to cross what the Trump team has pitched as a ‘golden bridge’ into a new future; or, third, hard-liners in the IRGC could try to break the blockade or launch other strikes to force more U.S. concessions.”
  2. The currently suspended hostilities with Iran have looked “like the Russia-Ukraine war” with “inexpensive, one-way attack drones, rapid advancements in surveillance and targeting, huge use of munitions and the expansion of the battlefield well beyond traditional military targets,” according to Lloyd Austin. On drones, the former DoD chief warns in NYT that “the cost exchange remains way out of whack: The advanced interceptors we use to fend off these drones cost vastly more than the weapons they defeat.” “We urgently need a more affordable, more comprehensive approach to countering the drone threat,” Austin adds, asserting that “the Iran war… shows that the lessons of Ukraine were not an anomaly.” Meanwhile Harvard University Professor Graham Allison ponders whether the U.S. can compete in mass drone warfare. The good news, Allison argues when answering this question on his X account, is that the U.S.-made one-way attack drone, known as the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, is comparable to an Iranian Shahed drone and its modification, the Russian Geran, in cost (thus, addressing the imbalance Austin refers to.)
  3. That Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar in has won a two-thirds supermajority in the April 12 elections in his country signals “a change in regime, from one that is Russian-aligned and kleptocratic, with the ruling party embedded in virtually every institution, to one that is free, liberal and oriented toward Europe,” argues NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg. She notes that under Viktor Orbán, Hungary “has vetoed aid to Ukraine and sanctions on both Russia and Israel,” whereas Magyar’s movement is “hostile to Russia.” However, as CEIP’s Maxim Samorukov reminds us, Magyar “has promised only to ‘gradually reduce dependence’ on Russian supplies by the mid‑2030s.” In addition, Magyar—who signaled pragmatism toward Moscow—demands protection of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, and is only prepared to let Ukraine into the EU after a referendum (he voted against granting Ukrainians a 90 billion euro loan in the European Parliament, according to Samorukov).

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

Nuclear security and safety:

“Europe’s joint nuclear-fusion project needs Russian expertise,” The Economist, 04.09.26.

  • The article notes that, four years into Russia’s war with Ukraine, “nearly all ties between Russian and European science have been severed,” but at ITER in southern France “Russian and European physicists, engineers and managers are still assembling a giant nuclear‑fusion reactor together.” Director‑general Pietro Barabaschi says “people leave their passports behind once they enter the facility,” as Russia continues to supply magnet segments, exhaust systems, and neutron‑absorbing panels.
  • It stresses that “no member’s offering is indispensable, but finding replacements can cause delays,” and ITER “cannot afford that,” already a “boondoggle” whose costs have ballooned from $18 billion to $32.4 billion and whose full operation has slipped to 2039. Russia’s invasion “added more paperwork to an already gummed‑up machine,” and with private U.S. firms like Commonwealth Fusion Systems racing ahead—expecting first plasma by 2027—Europe’s fusion activity, “mostly tied to ITER,” risks becoming “a multilateral relic” if it cannot decouple from Russian inputs and accelerate.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

  • No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program: 

“What really happened in Islamabad — and what Trump is trying now,” David Ignatius, Washington Post, 04.12.26.

  • Ignatius writes that after the 21‑hour Islamabad talks, Trump declared “most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not,” then “wham! — announced that to get a better deal he was blockading the Strait of Hormuz.” But, he argues, “the Islamabad impasse won’t necessarily mean a return to war,” saying Trump “has no appetite for further armed conflict” and instead wants to put “a severely battered Iran into an economic vise,” betting that “economic pressure can do what bombs couldn’t.”
  • He reports that Vice President J.D. Vance and Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf opened with “hard‑nosed” positions, but by the end U.S. officials saw Ghalibaf as “a refined and professional bargainer — and potential leader of a new Iran,” while some IRGC figures “are opening their own channels because they want to be part of the future as well.” Trump’s aim, Ignatius writes, is a “Tiffany deal”: “a big, glittering package of economic benefits, including removal of economic sanctions, in exchange for a full renunciation of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and support for proxies.”
  • He says the White House sees three scenarios as the blockade tightens: regime overthrow; Ghalibaf or another leader crossing a “golden bridge” to a new future; or IRGC hard‑liners trying to break the blockade, risking “the escalating military confrontation he hopes to avoid.” Framing Trump’s strategy as an attempt to move Iran “from a revolutionary ‘cause’ … into a real country that can modernize quickly and profitably,” Ignatius invokes Henry Kissinger’s image of post‑war realignments and concludes that the night‑long talks had “a quality at once of both impossibility and inevitability.”

“For Putin, Iran Is Something Close to Irreplaceable,” Nicole Grajewski, New York Times, 04.10.26.

  • From the Kremlin’s perspective, Grajewski argues, Iran “is something close to irreplaceable,” a partner that “has generated costs for America without requiring Russian exposure.”
  • The Russia‑Iran relationship, she contends, is now “dense, diversified and in important respects self-reinforcing,” built on a shared conviction that “the U.S.-led international order is designed to contain them” and cooperation in “intelligence, finance and an elaborate sanctions-evasion architecture.” Both regimes are “built on the premise that dissent is an enemy to be crushed,” sharing “surveillance, internet controls and crowd-suppression tactics,” and a 2025 partnership treaty without mutual defense was designed so “each [had] what it needed to fight longer on its own.”
  • Unlike Assad’s Syria, which Putin ultimately allowed to fall once “the cost of saving a client like Mr. Assad exceeded what he was worth,” Iran “is not a client” but “a state with its own revolutionary logic” that can “exert pressure on the United States in ways that Russia, bogged down in Ukraine, cannot,” she writes. If the Islamic Republic collapses, “no other country in Russia’s orbit can fill its role,” so Putin is likely to keep aiding Tehran through deniable means, since “Iran…is his proof of concept. As a failed state, it would become his slow-motion liability.”

“Did America just hand the Gulf to Russia?” IntelliNews Gulf bureau, Intellinews, 04.09.26.

  • IntelliNews argues that Trump’s Iran war has “comprehensively served Russian interests,” turning a previously marginalised exporter with “140mn barrels of crude…going nowhere” into a premium supplier whose Urals blend now trades around $122—“an almost $30 premium to Brent,” yielding an extra “$8.5bn a month” and likely ending large discounts “for a very long time.” Because Russian oil and gas largely bypass Hormuz, while Iran’s closure of the strait and attacks on Ras Laffan have crippled Gulf LNG and shattered the “Dubai” brand of stability, buyers from India to Bangladesh are being pushed toward cheap Russian crude and LNG routed via intermediaries, structurally tightening Moscow’s grip on global energy and extending the “runway for Russia’s war” in Ukraine.

"Iran, Ukraine and Putin’s calculations," Tatyana Stanovaya, R.Politik Bulletin No. 7, 04.13.26.

  • Tatyana Stanovaya writes that “within the Russian leadership, attitudes towards Donald Trump have long been mixed, ranging from enthusiasm to contempt, alongside the belief that he represents a highly dangerous figure—positions that are not necessarily mutually exclusive.” She argues that recent developments over Iran and the “so-called ‘ceasefire’—effectively interpreted as Trump’s last-minute retreat from a large-scale strike—has been seen as evidence of a failed strategy,” even as Moscow expects “that Iran may regain the initiative.”
  • “Although the attack on Iran has generated certain tactical advantages for Russia in the context of its war against Ukraine,” Stanovaya contends, “a prolonged conflict, a weakened Trump, and a diminished Iran are viewed as strategically more challenging for Moscow.” According to the author, “Moscow’s immediate objective is the resumption of negotiations—or more precisely, the restoration of US engagement in pursuing a settlement on Russian terms,” with Russia “wait[ing] for Trump to end his own war with Iran before he returns his focus to Ukraine.”
  • As for Ukraine, the author notes that Moscow’s position is now explicit: “Ukraine must withdraw its forces from the Donbas,” and that Putin’s Alaska “concessions” to freeze the contact line in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are being reconsidered. Stanovaya writes that the Iran talks have reinforced a lesson for Putin: “sticking to maximalist positions extract better terms from Washington, while early concessions go unrewarded,” even as “the concessions have not been formally repudiated, and the gap between internal deliberation and public positioning remains wide.”

“Putin’s plan to extend his influence becomes clearer by the day,” Mark Galeotti, The i Paper, 04.08.26.

  • Galeotti argues that the Iran war and Black Sea escalation are feeding a Kremlin strategy to pose as the Global South’s guarantor of food and fertilizer, as Russia “doubled its wheat exports last month” amid disrupted trade and controls 14% of urea, 23% of ammonia, and, with Belarus, 40% of potash—exports that “do not depend on the Strait of Hormuz.” With fertilizer flows through Hormuz (46% of urea, 30% of ammonia) blocked and the UN warning of 45 million more people facing acute food insecurity if the Iran conflict drags on, Moscow can tell poorer states “the West and its allies are starving you, but we can feed you,” locking countries such as Egypt, Bangladesh, Algeria, Kenya and others into long-term wheat and fertilizer contracts that translate into revenue and lasting political leverage.

“Why Putin is the real winner of the Iran war,” Marc Bennetts, The Times (U.K.), 04.09.26.

  • Bennetts contends that “without even firing a shot” Russia has emerged as “one of the winners” of the Iran war: the Tehran regime survived and can brand a fragile cease-fire a victory over the US; Moscow has reportedly supplied satellite imagery, intelligence and drone technology to help Iran target US assets; Russian crude and fertilizer prices have surged; and a temporary US easing of oil sanctions plus uncertainty over Hormuz have driven Russian export revenues to their highest since 2022. At the same time, Trump’s threats to quit NATO and allies’ refusal to join the war have exposed “tremendous weakness and strategic vulnerabilities” in the alliance, while US forces have burned through Patriot interceptors desperately needed by Ukraine—leading Volodymyr Zelensky to warn that Washington used “more than the entire number of Patriots Ukraine has received,” and leaving an Iran more tightly aligned with a Kremlin that is quietly cashing in.

“Why Trump Mishandled Iran,” Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy, 04.08.26.

  • Agrawal argues that Trump’s Iran war has left the Islamic Republic “intact but emboldened, vengeful, more militaristic, and more hard-line,” with a younger leadership, “de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz,” and 440 kg of highly enriched uranium—while global energy and supply chains are more fragile than before. He says the debacle stems from Trump’s long pattern of trusting foreign leaders and his gut over U.S. intelligence: in February, Benjamin Netanyahu sold Trump a “rosy” four‑part plan for regime change that CIA Director John Ratcliffe called “farcical” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio called “bullshit,” yet Trump ignored expert warnings that Iran would close Hormuz and hit Gulf states—later musing, “Who knew that was gonna happen?”
  • Agrawal traces how loyalty purges and “purity tests” in Trump’s second term hollowed out the State Department and NSC, sidelined career Iran hands like Nate Swanson, and empowered sycophants and outside fixers such as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Buoyed by earlier, lucky operations (a 12‑day strike on Iran and the raid that captured Nicolás Maduro), Trump came to believe “I don’t need international law” and that only his “own morality” could restrain him. The result, Agrawal concludes, is a president who stage‑manages cable‑TV narratives and markets but routinely walks 

“A Cease-Fire for Now in Iran, but a Blow to American Credibility,” Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 04.09.26.

  • Erlanger asks whether the Iran war is America’s “‘Suez’ moment,” noting that the two‑week cease-fire “leaves the Islamic Republic in place and still in command of the future of the Strait of Hormuz,” with its nuclear and missile programs unresolved, so that for many abroad the conflict “is starting to look like a military defeat, more serious than Iraq or Afghanistan.”
  • He quotes Stephen Wertheim that the episode shows “in a single incident the danger of American misgovernance and poor judgment,” and Anatol Lieven that by launching “a war of choice in a critical region for global trade and utterly ignoring the probable consequences for the economies of its closest allies, the Trump administration has destroyed the legitimacy of American power”; allies, already unnerved by tariff wars and Trump’s threat to “take Greenland,” now see the United States as “unpredictable and undependable,” even as China “looks like a peacemaker and agent of stability” while watching U.S. naval operations with “a great deal of glee.”

“How to End the Iran Crisis: Tehran Needs Positive Incentives, Not Just Pressure,” Federica Mogherini and Sahil V. Shah, Foreign Affairs, 04.13.26.

  • Mogherini and Shah argue that the collapsed talks show “diplomacy is the only viable way to ensure that Iran’s nuclear energy program is peaceful,” noting that war “has not erased the country’s underlying nuclear knowledge” and may convince Tehran that “vulnerability invites attack.” The authors say future negotiations must be staffed by true experts and must pair pressure with “positive, credible incentives,” since “coercion without a credible diplomatic pathway is not leverage—it is escalation,” and insist that any new deal must correct the JCPOA’s imbalance by treating sanctions relief as something to be “actively delivered” and by creating “shared physical and institutional investments” so that all parties—not just Iran—pay a high price for withdrawal.

“How Trump could still get a strategic win from the Iran war,” Dennis Ross, Washington Post, 04.09.26.

  • Ross writes that Trump’s two‑week pause “may presage an end to this war” and reflects his realization that Iran retaining control of Hormuz would be “a strategic loss,” but argues the United States could still gain a strategic win if a final deal achieves a “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, AND SAFE OPENING” of the strait and removes Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium—“440 kilograms of near weapons grade fissile material — and another roughly 180 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium.” He suggests insisting that this material be “extracted and shipped out of the country,” perhaps via a Syria‑style removal arrangement, and contends that given Iran’s deep domestic weaknesses—“water and electricity cutoffs, a currency that has no value, endemic corruption and the increasing difficulty of daily life”—ending the war quickly, if paired with an open strait and exported uranium, could “paradoxically hasten” regime collapse or an Iranian “Gorbachev,” turning a costly war into a long‑term strategic gain.

“The Iran War Around the World,” Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, 04.06.26.

  • Mead argues that the Iran war “matters to the whole world,” reshaping great‑power strategy: China’s island‑building has “passed almost unnoticed in Washington,” yet without U.S. power Japan fears access to Gulf resources would depend on “an Iranian government of religious fanatics aligned with Russia and China”; in Europe, the war highlights “the Continent’s declining significance,” as states “weren’t consulted,” have “little to no influence,” and are split, with Italy and Spain “raising difficulties for the American war effort” while Germany and Romania are “more supportive.”
  • “Next to the actual belligerents, Russia may have the most to lose in the war.” Mead notes that “Ukraine’s ability to sell its drone expertise to the Gulf Arab countries must have been a disagreeable shock to the Kremlin,” and warns that a collapse of Iran’s regime would “seriously damage Vladimir Putin’s most cherished goal: the restoration of Russian power across the former Soviet Union,” as new routes from “the landlocked ex‑Soviet republics of Central Asia” could end hopes of reasserting dominance.

"Iran has won. Initial results," Dmitry Trenin, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), 04.08.26. Machine-translated. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

  • “Trump finally found a way out of the situation he had gotten himself into by embarking on a war against Iran. He needed the threat of destroying an entire civilization as cover for withdrawing from the battlefield.”
  • “Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, recently conducted through intermediaries—primarily Pakistan and, with its backing, China—led to a ceasefire agreement. Trump may claim the Iranians were terrified of his threats, but the reality is that the ceasefire, while the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control, indicates that Tehran hasn't backed down, unlike Washington.”
  • “It is difficult to expect the advent of the ‘golden age’ promised by Trump as a result of the upcoming negotiations, but preliminary results of the past war can already be summed up.”
    • “1. Iran has strengthened its position as a regional power, along with Israel.”
    • “2. US security guarantees are a bluff. All of Washington's allies and partners should take this into account.”
    • “3. Sanctioned Iran, with its enormous financial and economic problems, has effectively defeated the world's superpower, while Iran's super-rich southern neighbors have found themselves the ‘whipping boys.’”
    • “4. Iran will remain an Islamic republic, but the center of real power has already shifted to the IRGC. Tehran's policy will be tough, but extremely rational.”
    • “5. Israel's inability, even with the most active participation of the United States, to ‘solve the Iranian problem’ could ultimately lead to the establishment of a regional balance between the two leading military powers in the region - Israel and Iran.”
  • “In the long term, Moscow has the opportunity to develop closer relations with Tehran, which has passed a severe test and significantly enhanced its international status. Russia, China, Iran, as well as Belarus and North Korea, effectively form the core of a new security system in Eurasia. Iran has just stopped an American geopolitical counteroffensive in southern Eurasia. Russia's achievement of its goals in the Ukrainian conflict will stop a similar attempt in the continent's west. In the east, China is strengthening its military power in anticipation of a possible conflict with the United States and simultaneously intensifying diplomacy. It is through such actions, not political declarations, that a real multipolar world is formed.”

“Iran as a Node of Global Vulnerability: Why Escalation Around Tehran Became a Global Economic Crisis,” Abbas Mirzai Gazi, Valdai Club, 04.09.26. Clues from Iranian Views. Machine-translated from Russian. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

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

“Now We Know What a Modern War Looks Like,” Lloyd J. Austin III, New York Times, 04.07.26.

  • Lloyd Austin writes that “the war with Iran…is already one of the most consequential conflicts in decades” and that it “looks far more like the Russia-Ukraine war,” with “inexpensive, one-way attack drones, rapid advancements in surveillance and targeting, huge use of munitions and the expansion of the battlefield well beyond traditional military targets.” Although the United States had begun preparing after studying Ukraine, “the Iran war has already made clear that the United States needs to do much more.”
  • On drones, he warns that “the cost exchange remains way out of whack: The advanced interceptors we use to fend off these drones cost vastly more than the weapons they defeat.” He calls for “a truly layered defense,” beginning with “disrupting drone supply chains and factories,” using “electronic warfare to stymie drones from afar,” deploying “interceptor drones and other solutions to defeat drones at a lower cost,” and “dispersing” and “fortifying our bases and infrastructure — both at home and abroad.”
  • He argues that the war shows the need for “wider and deeper stockpiles of munitions and the industrial capacity to rapidly replenish them under pressure” and insists that the “economic dimension of modern conflict cannot be treated as secondary.” 

“Ukraine’s Lesson for Trump: Military Dominance Opens Waterways,” Anastasiia Malenko, Wall Street Journal, 04.06.26.

  • Malenko contrasts the 2022 U.N.-backed Black Sea Grain Initiative with Ukraine’s later use of sea drones, noting that although months of negotiation “unblocked” grain exports for a time, it ultimately “took military force to keep it open” as Ukrainian sea drones drove Russia’s Black Sea Fleet away from key shipping lanes and restored exports “to near prewar levels.”
  • Ukrainian officials and allies warn that this history “exposes the limits of diplomacy in wartime” and offers a cautionary tale for President Trump, even as some European leaders discuss “replicating the Black Sea model” in the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha says “terrorist regimes share best practices,” arguing that “what Iran is doing today in the Strait of Hormuz, Russia did yesterday in the Black Sea,” while President Volodymyr Zelensky stresses that the challenge is not only “unblocking” but also “maintaining it, setting the rules, and ensuring protection.”
  • Sybiha insists that Ukraine’s breaking of the blockade offers a strategic lesson: “we succeeded because we acted decisively—and that is exactly the kind of mindset the world needs today.”

Podcast: “Update from the Battlefield: Drones, Distance, and Diminishing Returns for Russia,” Michael Kofman and Ryan Evans, War on the Rocks, 04.09.26.

  • Michael Kofman: “Ukraine's actually doing quite better than expected. The front stabilized around the winter as usual, but coming out of the winter and early spring, Russian forces began mechanized assaults again, but they haven't been doing that well. … I think they can sustain the fight maybe at this intensity or a bit less, but it's increasingly clear that they can't do significantly more or better, at least right now, than the way we saw them perform last year. Second, Ukraine is getting better and better at general employment, even though they have, to some extent, lost their advantages in the space over the course of 2025.” 
  • MK: “[W]hat happened by the time we get kind of to this point in the war is that most of the fight is not between infantry or soldiers at all on the ground. It is about the drone units of one side, their fire support, their artillery, but particularly their drone units, being able to displace the drone units of the other side.”
  • MK: “There's just a gray zone between the two sides. There isn't the sort of cohesive defensive lines between Russian, Ukrainian forces. … So now when you talk to colleagues on who took how much territory last month of March, the answer varies considerably. You know, DeepState, Ukrainian sites, shows Russia taking maybe 160 kilometers … And Finnish colleagues who also do the mapping rated the Russian advance as 25 square kilometers, as a net total advance, because they mapped it differently because there's such a large gray zone that three different mapping organizations can look at it and give you very different numbers at this point.”
  • MK: “For Ukraine, the more advantageous approach for sure is to stabilize the front line, expand middle strike that is to widen the kill zone over the Russian forces if parity has been lost at the tactical, you know, or if basically there are just at parity at the tactical level, and then expand long-range strike to affect the Russian economy does best they can and try to prevent Russia from capitalizing on current energy prices.”
  • MK, replying to a question on impacts of Iran war for Ukraine: “[The Iran war] draws all the attention, U.S. focus, obviously, to Iran and to the Gulf region from Ukraine. Energy prices is one big factor. Fertilizer prices is another one that people may not be tracking … But certainly, us having to lift sanctions on Russia this month and allowing them to sell out their floating stock doesn't do anything to help the situation. Then on top of that, we have Russia providing intelligence and certain things to Iran. … Then Ukraine's gotten into it as well because they were initially divisible losers from this conflict breaking out, but are trying to do their best to use this as an opportunity, right?”

“The Campaign Ends at the Breach: Lessons from Ukraine on Why Armies Fail,” Michael Carvelli, War on the Rocks, 04.08.26.

  •  Carvelli uses Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive to argue that “against prepared defenses, breaching and gap-crossing capacity can decide whether a land force ever gets to test the rest of its campaign design,” noting that at Novodarivka “they never moved. The engineers could not open the lane. Without the lane, none of the rest of it mattered,” and that “once the breach failed, the larger campaign could not unfold on the timetable that gave the original plan its promise.” He draws a parallel with Russia’s failed Siverskyi Donets crossing, where “their fuel, ammunition, and manpower elsewhere did not matter because the force at the crossing never secured the opening that would have let those other resources count.”
  • For U.S. planning, he argues that “the combined arms breach cannot remain a doctrinal ritual assumed away in campaign design,” urging planners to “treat breaching and crossing capacity as explicit campaign variables,” asking “how many lanes must be opened, and how quickly,” and warning that plans which assume breach capacity “the force cannot generate, sustain, or regenerate are accepting serious early risk,” since “a campaign can fail at the obstacle belt or the river line before the rest of the plan is ever tested.”

“Ukraine faces military desertions as Russian invasion grinds through 5th year,” Jack Hewson, PBS News Hour, 04.09.26.

  • “Ukraine's military says it's facing a growing problem of desertion. Experts estimate approximately 150,000 service members may be missing from their units as the war grinds through its fifth year,” Amna Nawaz of PBS reported.
  • “Soldiers cite extreme fatigue caused by long deployments without rotation, anger at orders seen as suicide missions and forced mobilization,” Jack Hewson of PBS reported.
  • “Across Ukraine's towns and villages, tens of thousands of former soldiers hide from a duty they can no longer face. For many, like Andriy, it wasn't always this way. He signed up to fight willingly in 2023. … What would … prompt Andriy's desertion were a series of catastrophic missions in Krasnohorivka in 2024, missions he says convinced him he could no longer trust his commanders,” according to Hewson.
  • “The commander Andriy is referring to is Major Alexi Kuchurenko. Andriy's comrade Sasha also complained that Kuchurenko's decisions had repeatedly cost lives and almost cost him his own. After returning from one mission, having lost men, he said Major Kuchurenko merely mocked them,” Hewson reports.
  • Chief Srgt. Volodymyr Tkach (through interpreter): “I can name Major Kuchurenko, the battalion commander at the time, but I emphasize this is a systemic problem. I must say that Major Kuchurenko's fault, in my opinion, lies in his incompetence and in supporting this system that doesn't work. If you talk to Major Kuchurenko, he will say that he is a great guy and the company commander is a fool. Sorry for being French. Well, and so on, the company commander will say that he is a great guy and that it is the sergeant who gave the order, et cetera.”
  • Tkach: “If, in 2022, 2023, we had one or two, maximum three people in the unit who became deserters, then, since 2024, there have been tens of thousands across the country. And this means that this is a systemic problem. … The reason is again very simple, mobilization, how it is carried out.”
  • “Tkach is referring to the forced mobilization that has seen thousands of men in some cases literally pulled off of the streets into minibuses, a phenomenon dryly referred to as busification, and then shipped on to the front,” Hewson reports. 

"Pressed by Russian Drones, Ukraine Turns to Ground Robots," Sam Skove, Foreign Policy, 04.13.26.

  • Sam Skove reports that Ukrainian “ground robots, typically four-wheeled platforms that look more like agricultural tools than Terminators,” now “take Russian soldiers prisoner, evacuate wounded Ukrainian troops, and lug supplies under a sky buzzing with enemy drones.” As Russian drones have turned an area “stretching as far as 9 miles from the front line into a kill zone,” an unmanned-systems commander known as “Bood” says, “It’s hopeless to take an armored vehicle and just send it to evacuate any infantry positions. You will be engaged on the way … 100 percent.”
  • “The numbers are increasing—and we’re going to see that scale even more in 2026,” Rob Lee of FPRI told Skove, who notes that in February Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov celebrated “more than 7,000 ground robot missions in a single month” and set a goal of robots transporting all front-line supplies. According to the author, more than 200 Ukrainian companies now make UGVs, with some units covering “as much as 80 percent” of logistics by robot and “saving quite a lot of lives” through medical evacuations.
  • Looking ahead, Viktoriia Honcharuk predicts that “2026 is going to be the year of [assault] UGV,” as robots increasingly lay mines, mount machine guns, and conduct strike missions, even though, as Bood argues, they must be “mass-produced and cheap” to be sustainable.


“Ukraine outshoots Russia in cross-border drone war for 1st time, March data suggests,” David Brennan, ABC News, 04.06.26.

Military aid to Ukraine:

“How Ukraine Benefited From Trump’s Iran War,” Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy, 04.09.26.

  • Caryl argues that Trump’s chaotic Iran war has unexpectedly boosted Ukraine’s military, economic, and diplomatic position, turning it into a sought‑after “arsenal of democracy.” After Zelensky told the British Parliament that “the regimes in Russia and Iran are brothers in hatred—and that is why they are brothers in weapons,” he quickly signed long‑term defense deals with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, pitching Ukraine’s battle‑tested, low‑cost counter‑drone tech at the very moment Gulf states discovered the limits of their expensive, munition‑hungry U.S. systems. Simultaneously, Ukraine has recaptured territory, hit Russian oil infrastructure and industry (knocking out an estimated 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity), freed up its Black Sea trade, and even used naval drones from Libya to disable a Russian gas tanker—making Gulf states and others ask whether Kyiv can help with chokepoints like Hormuz.
  • As U.S.–European relations fray and Washington throttles aid, Ukraine is less dependent on the United States, now producing roughly 60% of its own weapons and building a dense web of joint ventures with European, Gulf, Japanese, and potentially South Korean partners. Western defense elites may sneer at “Ukrainian housewives” with 3‑D printers, but NATO war games in Estonia showed Ukrainian drone operators wiping out Western forces, underscoring that Europe “needs the Ukrainians as much as the Ukrainians need them.” Four years into the war, Caryl concludes, Ukraine is no longer just a supplicant but “a force to be reckoned with” in global security and defense tech.

“The West’s Ukraine Sanctions Strategy Has Lost Its Way,” Tom Keatinge, RUSI, 04.13.26.

  • Keatinge writes that plans in February to “slash further Russia’s energy revenues” with “a full maritime services ban for Russian crude oil” have been upended by the Iran war: Brent has jumped from about $65 to near $100, and Europe now faces a dilemma—“act harder against Russia’s main source of military funding and risk exacerbating the global energy crisis, or watch as the spiraling oil price provides Russia with an income windfall.” Events have “conspired against Ukraine’s allies,” he argues, citing Trump’s “continued disinterest” in using sanctions for Ukraine, Viktor Orbán’s blocking of the EU’s 20th package, and “Netanyahu/Trump adventurism in the Middle East,” leaving Europe’s response “one of mere paralysis.”
  • He contends the answer is to stop “Russia spending its funds,” stressing that “Russia has ramped up its use of cryptocurrency to pay for much needed critical military items, primarily from China,” yet “a systematic effort to identify and disrupt the crypto-based payment methods used by Russia has been almost entirely absent.” A “small and under-resourced band of investigators” has the information needed to target “wallets, exchanges and other tools,” but “repeated initiatives to elevate the importance” of this work “are ignored.” Keatinge concludes that Ukraine’s allies must “rediscover” their sanctions vision: “it is time to finally take Russia’s use of cryptocurrency seriously and apply the same effort to disrupting the Kremlin’s spending as it has done to its revenue raising.”  

“A Flawed Formula for Peace in Ukraine: Trump Can’t End a War With a Real Estate Transaction,” Samuel Charap and Jennifer Kavanagh, Foreign Affairs, 04.07.26.

  • Samuel Charap and Jennifer Kavanagh argue that “occupation of the entire Donbas is certainly not a sufficient condition for peace”: it “would not, for example, limit Ukraine’s future military capabilities,” prevent Kyiv joining Western alliances, or stop NATO forces being deployed under the mooted “coalition of the willing.” 
  • “If U.S. officials want to end the long, bloody war between Russia and Ukraine, they must stop anchoring the process on a narrow land-for-guarantees formula. Instead, they need to adopt a comprehensive approach that allows both Moscow and Ukraine to have confidence in their long-term security and that charts a course toward a less hostile and more sustainable relationship,” they write.
  • In the proposed deal 
    • “Ukraine could formally pledge to not join any military alliance, agree to permanent nonaligned status, and declare self-determined caps on its forces.”
    • “Moscow should adopt limits on its deployment of forces, missiles, and heavy weapons near Ukrainian territory and in parts of Ukraine it has occupied.”
    • “Both sides could vow not to host foreign forces on their territory.”
    • “For Russia, the United States and some other NATO members could offer a formal and legally binding commitment… that they would veto efforts to enlarge the alliance to the east as long as Russia does not reinvade Ukraine.”“In addition, the United States and its allies could explicitly exclude U.S.- and European-made long-range missiles and combat aircraft… in their peacetime assistance to Ukraine.”
    • “To reassure Ukraine, the United States and its European allies could make legally binding commitments to provide military aid, including air defenses, artillery rockets, and other short-range precision munitions, along a set timeline.”
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

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

“Russia Will Be More Dangerous After the War with Ukraine,” Eugene Rumer, Carnegie Endowment, 04.06.26.

  • Rumer writes that Putin’s invasion has “turned Ukraine into an implacable enemy of Russia and awakened Europe to the Russian threat,” leaving “the Russian heartland…exposed daily to Ukrainian retaliatory strikes” while “Europe is rearming in a more serious manner than it has since the Cold War.” Putin, “like the cornered rat he described in his autobiography, is left with only one option—to strike back with everything he can muster,” so “he cannot win this war, but he is all in on it anyway.”
  • He argues that Russia’s conventional forces have been badly degraded, so “nuclear weapons are bound to become even more important” both for the European theater and in deterring an “unpredictable” United States, whose record of attacking non‑nuclear states while avoiding direct war with Russia and tolerating North Korea “has reaffirmed to the Kremlin that nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent.” At the same time, new technologies and Ukrainian strikes mean “the old, traditional Russian way of war—with massive formations of armor and infantry—is just not sustainable,” forcing a long, contested transformation inside Russia’s military and defense industry.
  • Rumer warns that “no matter how its war against Ukraine ends, Russia will emerge less secure, more aggrieved, and posing a greater threat to Europe,” with Putin’s legacy a “dangerous confrontation…from the Arctic to the Black Sea.” Europe’s “holiday from history…is over,” he writes: it can “no longer” count on the United States to lead its defense and is debating its own conventional and nuclear deterrents, while the transatlantic policy community must “fully appreciate the nature of the challenge” and abandon the “myopic” view of Russia as merely “a gas station with nuclear weapons.”

“A New Era of World War Has Arrived,” Paul Poast, New York Times, 04.12.26.

  • Poast argues that with Ukraine and Iran, “we are watching another unwelcome phenomenon return to the global stage: the world war,” as “two large conflicts on different continents have become theaters for strategic competition between major powers.” He writes that “Russia and the United States went to war for different reasons,” but in both cases Putin and Trump “believed success would be easy and that their goal justified virtually any level of violence—even if it broke the bounds of international law.”
  • He says the wars “became expressions of the great power competition underway,” noting that “the United States continues to provide arms, intelligence and planning to Ukraine,” while “Russia was reported to be doing the same for Iran by providing targeting information and mapping on U.S. military positions and sending drones to Tehran.” Iran’s closure of Hormuz has produced “a financial windfall for Russia,” as higher prices and eased sanctions on its oil coincide with a Russian spring offensive in Ukraine.
  • Poast calls this a modern analogue of earlier global wars like the Seven Years’ War, arguing that today, unlike the Cold War, leaders such as Putin and Trump show “a more cavalier approach to using the military to achieve their goals—and a greater indifference to the consequences,” and warns that failing to see these linked conflicts as “part of a global event” is “exactly how states can stumble from a limited war of choice into a world war they did not intend.”

“Recriminations over Iran have heightened the risk of a break-up of NATO,” The Economist, 04.09.26.

  • The editors write that the Iran war has “pushed NATO closer than ever to a point of no return,” as resentments “curdle” and “each partner builds a story in which the other is the problem.” Trump denounced allies for being slow or refusing base and overflight access, warning, “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore,” while many European governments “rightly, saw the Iran campaign as rash and dangerously vague” and feared being dragged into a war “on which they were not consulted and of which they disapprove.”
  • They argue that “the terrible truth threatening Europe is that national security should no longer be based on the assumption America will be ‘there to help’,” saying Article 5’s deterrent effect “is weaker than at any point in the alliance’s 77-year history,” and warning that Trump’s irritation “will not blow over” as Marco Rubio has “marked a new low by also questioning the value of membership” and “the next president could well agree.” While conceding that “Mr. Trump is right to say NATO’s European members do not spend enough on their own defense,” they insist Europe must sustain defense spending “closer to” 4–5% of GDP, build capabilities “especially in air defense, logistics and munitions,” and make “Ukraine… central to Europe’s new security architecture,” even if “the past six weeks gives scant ground for hope” of transatlantic reconciliation.

“What is Strategic Rivalry? Why Should We Care?,” Antulio J. Echevarria, War on the Rocks, 04.09.26.

  • Echevarria argues that “interstate rivals have caused roughly 80% of history’s wars” and that U.S. documents talk about “strategic competition” without grasping that “competitions and rivalries demand fundamentally different strategies.” Strategic rivalry is “a relationship in which two states pursue the same interest—undermining each other’s capacity to compete—through serial disputes and wars,” so “rivals require a strategy of containment or preclusion because what is at stake is not a particular policy outcome but each side’s ability to remain in the game at all.”
  • He writes that “at least three states—China, Russia, and Iran—currently behave as rivals toward the United States,” notes that “a Russian victory over Ukraine would gain additional territory for Moscow, but it would also boost Russia’s regional and potentially its global status,” and finds that only 55% of rivalries since 1815 ended peacefully, while 45% ended with one side losing “its capacity to compete.” The United States, he concludes, “needs a comprehensive strategy that combines containment and preclusion” and should size and allocate forces “against America’s list of repeat offenders,” because “a rivalry might slide into remission but that does not mean the disease is gone.”

“The Trouble With Permanent Alliances: Why America’s Pacts Should Have Expiration Dates,” Naman Karl-Thomas Habtom, Foreign Affairs, 04.2026.

  • Habtom argues that after 1945 the United States adopted “a historically anomalous strategy toward alliances,” turning them into “eternal, sacrosanct pacts that are ends in themselves,” and that in the post–Cold War era such permanent alliances “have inflicted major damage on the United States” by “predetermin[ing] the country’s adversaries” and locking policy into antagonism toward “Moscow and Beijing.” He contends that Washington should “formally renegotiate all its permanent alliances,” replacing them with time‑bound treaties modeled on arms‑control deals and historical coalitions, and suggests that if it wants to remain involved in European security it must treat the continent “including Russia” as a single space or, if Russia is excluded, move from one transatlantic bloc to “time-limited regional agreements.” Ultimately, he writes, only a “significant restructure of alliances will give the United States the credibility it needs to meaningfully improve relations with these two powers,” since Beijing and Moscow now see its “sprawling alliance network across both ends of Eurasia” as “a threat and a mere extension of the Pentagon’s reach,” and “flexibility is the truer source of strength and security.”

“Europe’s New Defense Core: As America Steps Back, Four Countries Will Shape the Continent’s Security,” Ethan Kapstein and Jonathan Caverley, Foreign Affairs, 04.09.26.

  • Kapstein and Caverley argue that with Russia increasingly aggressive and Trump’s United States no longer a reliable guarantor, Europe’s security will in practice be shaped not by Brussels but by four “defense heavyweights”: Germany, Poland, France, and the United Kingdom. EU‑level efforts—such as the European Defense Fund and new joint‑procurement schemes—remain slow, small (roughly 1% of combined defense budgets), and hampered by industrial nationalism and clashing requirements, as seen in the troubled Franco‑German‑Spanish Future Combat Air System.

“Speech by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the Reagan Institute’s Center for Peace Through Strength,” NATO, 04.09.26.

  • Rutte says recent years show that “while Europe may not think in spheres of influence, countries like Russia certainly do,” and praises U.S. leadership and Trump’s pressure for forcing Europe to rearm, arguing that NATO must deter “the unprovoked war of aggression of Russia against Ukraine.” He stresses that Russian MiG‑31s crossing Estonian airspace were turned back by European jets, and that on the eastern flank “Forward Land Forces” led by the U.S., Germany, Canada and others are deployed to defend frontline states.
  • Asked about Russia–Iran cooperation, he says “they’re absolutely cooperating,” listing “drone technology” and “other military technology” flowing from Iran to Russia, with “money from Russia to Iran,” and calls Iran “the main export of chaos in the Middle East.” He notes that Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Belarus are “working together when it comes to this war of aggression against Ukraine,” reinforcing why NATO must see the Atlantic and Pacific as “interconnected” theaters.
  • On Ukraine, Rutte says that although Russia is losing “up to…35,000 people dead or seriously wounded” a month, “the front line is moving in the wrong direction,” so a settlement requires security guarantees “so strong that they know that the Russians will not try to attack again.” He describes a three‑layer scheme: a powerful Ukrainian army, a European “coalition of the willing,” and the United States as “backstop,” while admitting that “NATO membership… is not on the table for now.”

“Afterword on NATO Secretary General Rutte's Visit to Washington,” Dmitriy Trenin, Russian International Affairs Council, 04.11.26. Clues from Russian Views. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?3

Missile defense:

“Too Much SDI,” Sergei Oznobishev, Expert, 04.12.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Oznobishev recalls a 1980s Vienna forum on Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) where he presented conclusions of the Soviet Scientists’ Committee for the Defense of Peace—led by academicians Evgeny Velikhov, Andrei Kokoshin, and Roald Sagdeev—which “convincingly proved the military‑technical insolvency and financial ruinousness of this program.” He notes that “a number of authoritative American scientists” reached similar conclusions and that “many arguments and proofs were worked out jointly by Soviet and American experts,” highlighting the degree of East–West scientific cooperation in debunking SDI.
  • He recounts how SDI advocate Lowell Wood responded to criticisms about “disproportionate costs and the dubiousness of the whole task” by suggesting multibillion‑dollar orbital battle platforms could be repurposed for “weather forecasting,” a remark that “provoked loud laughter” from diplomats and ended with Wood “slamming the door.” Oznobishev argues that Reagan, “blindly trusting such ‘narrow specialists’ as Lowell Wood or Edward Teller,” ignored expert opinion and poured “huge sums” into “dead‑end R&D” that failed to produce useful spinoffs and quickly fragmented into “poorly coordinated” sub‑projects.
  • He contrasts Moscow’s “weighted decision” for an “asymmetric response”—explained at the time by Strategic Rocket Forces commander Yuri Maksimov—with Trump’s current “Golden Dome” initiative, which he says “in fact repeats the mistakes of the past,” betting on technical fixes and space‑based missile defense to secure lasting unilateral advantage, something SDI never achieved and for which “there is no reason to believe” it will be achievable now.

Nuclear arms:

“Hans Blix: Can arms control survive this dangerous age of war and rearmament?,” European Leadership Network, 04.10.26.

  • Blix writes that the world has entered “a dismaying and volatile period of renewed instability and accelerating risk,” with governments responding by a “massive wave of rearmament” even as they “fail to find adequate resources” for climate threats. He stresses that the lapse of New START and the “absence of planning for radical nuclear disarmament” make “a new agreement limiting the arsenals of at least the three major powers of critical priority,” but doubts that awareness of “ever‑growing ability to destroy one another will lead them to agree on new, far‑reaching” constraints.
  • He argues that Mutually Assured Destruction “remains a fundamental assuring element,” insisting that the fear of “unacceptable damage” from a second strike will persist “even by Washington’s promised ‘Golden Dome’ antimissile project,” and that it “does not matter much whether the threat comes from a stock of 200 or 2,000 nuclear weapons.” Yet he laments that great powers are instead pursuing “preventive warfare” and “non‑kinetic means of warfare,” citing Russia in Georgia and Crimea and the U.S. in Iran and Venezuela, and calls for more traditional deconfliction tools: “restraint in arms deployment, nuclear fail‑safe mechanisms, increased transparency, open communications, and hotlines.”
  • On proliferation, Blix warns that waning support for the NPT and fears about U.S. “America First” policies are fueling debates on national nuclear options in countries such as South Korea, Japan, Poland, and Sweden, while the Middle East remains “the gravest” concern. He criticizes the U.S. for having “joined Israel” in a pattern of strikes and sabotage against Iran that “risk strengthening incentives for further proliferation,” and argues that “more constructive action would lie in diplomacy” to revive an agreement building on the 2015 JCPOA, alongside genuine movement toward a two‑state solution as part of any long‑term nonproliferation settlement in the region.

“Russia threatens nuclear strike on Ukraine in 48 hours: ‘Wipe cities off Earth’,” Antonio Scancariello and Will Stewart, The Express, 04.07.26.

  • The article reports that on Russian state TV, retired air-defense colonel Mikhail Khodarenok said “perhaps we should switch to special [nuclear] weapons and end this conflict within ten days,” arguing that “the task isn’t solvable with conventional weapons” and that “the use of special weapons should not be considered an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence.” He suggested Ukraine’s leadership hiding “in underground bunkers, located at considerable depths” could only be reached “with special weapons,” and proposed a Trump‑style ultimatum forcing Kyiv to accept “some kind of peace agreement” or face nuclear strikes.
  • Host Vladimir Solovyov welcomed him to the “Nuclear Maniacs Club,” saying “I’ve been calling for this for a long time,” and warned, “Citizens living in Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kharkiv, leave your cities immediately. They will be wiped off the face of the earth,” adding of international reaction: “We don’t care.”
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Counterterrorism:

  • No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

  • No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

“Mutually Automated Destruction: The Escalating Global A.I. Arms Race,” Sheera Frenkel, Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano, New York Times, 04.12.26.

  • Frenkel, Mozur, and Satariano report that at a Beijing parade Xi Jinping, joined by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, watched “several models of drones that could autonomously fly alongside fighter jets into battle,” prompting U.S. officials to conclude that America’s drone program “was lagging China’s” and that “Russia, too, was thought to be ahead in building facilities that could produce advanced drones.” They note that “Russia and Ukraine, now in their fifth year of war, are looking for every technological advantage,” with analysts saying Moscow has “invested in drone and autonomy-related programs, using the war in Ukraine to test and refine them on the battlefield.”
  • Two U.S. officials say “China and Russia are experimenting with letting A.I. make battlefield decisions on its own,” with China developing swarming systems and Russia “building Lancet drones that can circle in the sky and autonomously pick targets.” The authors recall that in 2014 Russia set a goal of making “30% of its combat power autonomous by 2025,” and that by 2018 it was testing an unmanned armed vehicle in Syria, underscoring “Moscow’s ambitions.”
  • They stress that intentions are explicit: in 2017 “Mr. Putin declared that whoever leads in A.I. ‘will become the ruler of the world,’” while Palmer Luckey says “Russia, China and the United States are all building A.I. arms as a deterrent and for ‘mutually assured destruction,’” raising fears of an “escalatory spiral” in which each side believes the others are “hiding something.”

“This Was the First War Against AI,” Hamid Dahouei and Arash Reisinezhad, Foreign Policy, 04.10.26.

  • On March 1, Iranian drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centers in the United Arab Emirates, and a third was damaged in Bahrain. For weeks, cloud services across the Gulf remained partially offline.
  • The technology industry has long spoken of “the cloud” as though it were weightless, distributed, resilient, borderless. The Iran war corrected that metaphor with fire. The cloud has an address. That address can be hit by a drone that costs less than a used car.
  • Until now, the events of the Iran war have largely been framed in familiar terms, focused on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, disruptions to energy flows, the U.S.-Israeli air campaign, and Iran’s missile strikes across the region. Yet this framing misses a deeper and more consequential layer of the conflict: the battle over the region’s data centers and digital infrastructure.
  • What unfolded in the Gulf was not simply a regional conflict with collateral damage to the digital economy. The belief that massive sovereign wealth investments, reinforced by bilateral tech partnerships and U.S. security guarantees, could override geography has proved false. The Iran war has shown again that technology alone cannot tame geopolitics, since infrastructure follows geography and geography follows history.
  • The next phase of the AI infrastructure race will unfold on two fronts: on Earth, where the question is which locations can credibly protect critical assets, and in space, where the question is whether those assets can be removed from risk altogether. Neither front has a clear answer yet. But the Iran war has made certain that both questions will now be answered urgently, by every power that understands what is at stake. The phrase “the first war on AI” is too sweeping. With a narrow definition of AI, the evidence supports an attack on cloud/data-center infrastructure, not on AI systems as such. With a broader definition (if AI includes the physical computer backbone that makes AI possible), then this could count as an attack on AI infrastructure. 

“Meeting on the Development of Artificial Intelligence Technologies,” Vladimir Putin, Kremlin.ru, 04.10.26. Clues from Russian views. Machine-translated.

  • Putin told tech and government officials that AI, digital platforms, and autonomous systems are “forming a fundamentally different appearance of the economy…defense and security,” and warned that Russia’s ability to keep pace will determine “sovereignty and, in the near future, without any exaggeration, the very existence of the Russian state.” He said language models and AI agents are approaching “a new level of independence,” able to “plan their actions and evaluate the results,” and even “imitate a person, his cognitive and even emotional behavior.”
  • He argued that language models are “a basic, cross-cutting technology” and insisted that Russia must have “our own fundamental models of artificial intelligence” that are “competitive on a global scale” and possess “the maximum level of sovereignty,” meaning “the full cycle of their development and training must be carried out by Russian companies” to guarantee security and defense needs. Putin said regulation must “not restrain, not interfere, but…serve as a stimulus” for accelerated deployment, warning that “if we build barriers here, we will undoubtedly lag behind.”
  • Putin ordered the government to “build the financial architecture” for the project with participation from the state, private tech business, and state companies, and said a new commission led by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko and presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin will set strategy. Its tasks include “programs for accelerated implementation of AI” in key sectors, adapting “the entire system of human potential development” from schools to labor markets, “calculating models of key risks and threats” from AI use, developing sovereign AI for “national defense and security,” and creating a system to promote Russian AI and services abroad and expand cooperation with CIS, SCO, and BRICS partners.

Energy exports from CIS:

“Why Energy Has Become a Foreign-Policy Weapon,” Ravi Agrawal interviewing Meghan O’Sullivan, Foreign Policy, 04.07.26.

  • Meghan O’Sullivan, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School calls the current crisis “the biggest supply disruption that we’ve ever seen,” noting “10 million barrels of oil a day that essentially are not on the market…as well as about 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity.” Compared with 1973, she says, “both the percentage and the physical number of barrels… taken off the market is considerably less than is happening today,” yet prices haven’t exploded because “the market has really not priced in the geopolitical risk we’re facing” and has believed Trump’s claims the war is nearly over.
  • She argues energy as a weapon “never went away. It just receded to the background,” as post‑1970s reforms and market integration made oil “the most easily traded commodity in the world” and “made the prospect of using energy as a weapon less attractive.” That changed, she says, when Russia “started to use natural gas as a weapon” before invading Ukraine, revealing that “despite all the abundance… energy was still very much a tool of foreign policy” once great‑power rivalry and a more fragile globalization returned.
  • O’Sullivan says Russia has long considered “stirring up geopolitical tensions as a way of increasing the price of oil,” and that today it is “really benefiting” from higher prices and Western distraction, though she doubts “a petrostate can exist indefinitely in this geopolitical age.” She maintains that “the world is going to continue its pursuit of a more sustainable global energy economy over time,” and criticizes Moscow for making “no effort…to try to position itself for a world where oil isn’t as valuable.”
  • On how others should respond, she warns that turning inward is dangerous: the “illusion of energy autarky” may tempt countries to stockpile or retreat from markets, but “continuing to be integrated into the global market is going to be better than the alternatives” for oil and gas. Over the longer term, she expects a push to “produce more of your energy at home” via renewables and electrification, while cautioning that this will also “make many more countries…susceptible to political and economic pressure from China,” since Beijing “has dominance over clean energy supply chains”—meaning the “energy weapon is back,” now in both fossil and clean forms.

“The new oil world order,” Emily Peck, Axios, 04.10.26.

  • Peck reports that the Iran war’s energy shock may permanently transform the global oil market from a relatively open, smoothly functioning system into one that is “weaponized and fractured,” with oil prices about 50% higher than before the war and physical barrels at record highs as buyers scramble around Iran’s effective lockdown of the Strait of Hormuz. Dan Yergin calls it “the mother of all supply chain disruptions,” and Axios notes that, like past shocks (the 1970s crisis, the Ukraine war, COVID supply‑chain chaos), this one could raise inflation, spur reshoring and diversification, and even undermine the dollar‑based economic order and U.S. power.

“Don’t Renew a Sanctions Break for Russia,” Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, 04.09.26.

  • The editors argue that the temporary sanctions waiver for Russian oil, issued as the Iran war disrupted energy shipments, “will expire on April 11 unless the U.S. makes the error of renewing it.” They contend the general license from Treasury “did little to ease energy price spikes but fueled Russia’s war machine,” since “strong U.S. energy production means Americans remain at little risk of supply shortages,” and “freeing up sanctioned Russian oil didn’t have much of an impact on global oil supply beyond the initial boost.”

“Beneficiary of War: What Gains Russia Gets From the Closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” Sergey Vakulenko, Carnegie Politika, 03.27.26.

  • Vakulenko writes that the U.S.–Israel war with Iran and the closure of Hormuz “shook the established assumptions about the global oil market,” exposing “fragility and vulnerability” and giving Russia “a chance to get out of the dead end it drove itself into” after invading Ukraine. He notes that the shortage has already cut the discount on Urals from $25 to $15 in one week, with the price jumping by $30—“this growth alone would bring Russia an additional $8.5 billion per month,” of which the state gets about $5 billion. Even if Gulf infrastructure escapes major damage, he argues, “the world will emerge from the crisis with smaller reserves of oil and gas, and the war premium will push prices up,” making Russian hydrocarbons more “indispensable” for Europe, India, and China and hardening Moscow’s position in energy diplomacy.

“The Kremlin’s Baltic Hormuz: Ukrainian attacks on Russian ports cut Russia’s gains from the Iranian oil crisis by two thirds,” Re:Russia, 04.07.26.

  • The authors argue that Ukrainian strikes on Russian maritime export infrastructure are “the most powerful blow to the Russian oil sector since the start of the full-scale war,” with the current wave “specifically targeted at the infrastructure underpinning Russia’s maritime exports of oil and petroleum products.” Since “around half of all Russian oil exports and 60% of petroleum product exports still flow through Baltic ports” whose volumes “cannot be diverted to the Pacific,” roughly “2.5 million barrels per day of crude and refined exports risk being stranded inside the country, forcing Russian oil companies to cut production,” and in the fourth week of the Iran war port strikes “pulled revenues down by $1 billion, wiping out roughly two thirds of the previous week’s gains.”
  • They describe the Baltic ports as “a kind of ‘Putin’s Strait of Hormuz’, the closure of which largely offsets the effect of blocking the actual Strait of Hormuz,” warning that if Ukraine learns to hit Black Sea terminals “with similar precision,” up to “55% of Russian oil exports and 90% of petroleum product exports” would be within range, potentially “paralys[ing] the oil export capacity of the European part of Russia.” The key enabler, they suggest, is a mass of long‑range UAVs that exploit “the inability of air defense systems to cope with large-scale drone attacks,” the same vulnerability Russia and Iran are using against Ukraine and the U.S.-Israeli coalition.

“Rosneft’s massive Arctic oil push undermines BP’s green turn,” Henry Foy, Financial Times, 01.06.21.

Climate change:

  • No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

  • No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Can the U.S. compete in mass drone warfare?,” Graham Allison on his X account, 04.07.26.

  • “The U.S. was the first country to develop the most remarkable drones the world has ever seen. Used heavily in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by 2019, the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper had logged more than 4 million flight hours supporting combat operations.
  • In the search for and killing of the mastermind of the attack on the World Trade Center, Osama Bin-Laden, U.S. efforts reportedly included drones as small as a hummingbird.
  • While in the DoD, these capabilities are often described as “exquisite,” the marketplace calls them “expensive”. The MQ-9 Reaper costs $30 million per unit while newer unmanned systems like the MQ-25 Stingray cost as much as $160 million apiece.
  • The contrast with China becomes vivid when one looks at the commercial market. Go to Amazon and look at the options. The Chinese company DJI, which produces 70% of the drones sold on the commercial market, sells their Mavic 3 Classic for just $1,300. The closest American equivalent, Skydio’s X10, costs around $15,000 per unit. Most importantly, DJI produces over 1 million Mavic drones per year while Skydio’s production remains in the low thousands and are not even sold on the consumer market.
  • The good news—the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS). Produced by defense startup Spektreworks, the LUCAS is a start on America’s answer to the low-cost, one-way attack drones that are increasingly dominating battlefields across the globe.
  • Inspired by (and copied from) the Iranian Shahed drone, the LUCAS is able to travel 500 miles and carry a 40-pound warhead. For sizing, the LUCAS costs $35,000.
  • So, the LUCAS is comparable to an Iranian Shahed or a Russian Geran in cost while far less than a $2 million Tomahawk cruise missile. There is still a long way to go before it becomes price competitive with the Chinese equivalent, the Feilong-300D, which sells for as little as $10,000 per unit.”

“Trump Hasn’t Given Up on His ‘Unrequited Love’ for Putin,” Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times, 04.07.26.

  • Edsall argues that Trump is willing to “sacrifice American interests in subservience to President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” noting that after reports that “Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East” and a drone strike killed six U.S. troops, Trump brushed off Moscow’s role—“if they’re getting information, it’s not helping them much”—and then “more or less exonerated Putin,” saying of Ukraine, “They would say we do it against them.” Keir Giles contends “much of what Trump and his inner circle have done is precisely what the Kremlin would have wanted them to do,” while Edsall highlights the Senate Intelligence Committee’s finding that Manafort’s sharing of data with Konstantin Kilimnik and other Russian-linked figures posed a “grave counterintelligence threat.”
  • Fiona Hill describes Trump’s stance toward Putin as “a kind of unrequited love,” saying “he never gets what he wants off Putin, which is really adulation, respect,” and that Trump wants Putin to grant him “his peace in Ukraine and his Nobel Prize.” From Putin’s point of view, she adds, it isn’t “ridiculous” to see Trump as an “asset,” since “everyone’s potentially an asset” to Moscow, whether “witting” or not.

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

"Growth cannot be restored. Russia has never developed in isolation," Igor Lipsits, The Moscow Times, 04.08.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

Defense and aerospace:

“To Fill Drone Force Ranks, Russia Targets a New Demographic: Students,” Milana Mazaeva, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Paul Sonne, New York Times, 04.13.26.

  • The authors describe how, in the war’s fifth year, Russian officials are turning to university students with lucrative offers of drone-force contracts that promise reinstatement at school, free tuition, housing and large payments. One student, Daniil, calls the pitch a “twisted scheme for recruiting,” according to the reporters, who note he found it “absurd and horrifying.”
  • According to the authors, recruiters fan out across “hundreds of universities,” contrasting dangerous infantry service with supposedly safer, highly paid drone roles and emphasizing “unique knowledge and skills.” University officials sometimes tell struggling students it is their “duty” to fight, the reporters write, and warn that those facing expulsion risk being funneled toward the front.
  • The article reports that recruitment sessions use masculinity tropes and upbeat messaging, while downplaying risk: one student says “if you aren’t fighting, you aren’t really a man” is the underlying theme, and another says officials act “as if they are trying to suggest that the situation is supposedly safe.” This campaign, the authors argue, is part of wider efforts to avoid another unpopular mass draft.

“The New Arctic: Where Is Russia’s Place in the Race to Explore the Moon?,” Georgy Trishkin, Carnegie Politika, 04.07.26.

  • Trishkin argues that the state of Russia’s space sector “reflects the general situation in the country: excessively high ambitions and, to put it mildly, modest results,” with the industry in “stagnation” marked by overstaffing, “crushing debts,” and underfunding. While the United States and China are vying to return humans to the Moon by 2028, Russia has only plans for unmanned missions, and its last successful lunar landing was in 1976; after the Luna‑25 crash, the next attempt “will not happen before 2028,” by which time Washington and Beijing will be preparing crewed landings. He writes that Russia “missed the right moment” to offer itself as an equal partner, and that today it has “practically nothing to offer the leaders of the race—neither technologically nor financially,” with even its one remaining advantage, space nuclear power, being pursued independently by competitors.
  • See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

  • No significant developments.

     

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“What Orban’s Defeat Means for the Rest of the World,” Michelle Goldberg, New York Times, 04.13.26.

  • Goldberg writes that Magyar’s two‑thirds victory signals not just a change of government but “a change in regime, from one that is Russian-aligned and kleptocratic, with the ruling party embedded in virtually every institution, to one that is free, liberal and oriented toward Europe.” She notes that under Orbán, Hungary “has vetoed aid to Ukraine and sanctions on both Russia and Israel,” whereas Magyar’s movement is “hostile to Russia,” with crowds reviving the 1956 chant “Russians, go home,” and analysts see “a strong narrative of commitment to the European Union and NATO,” suggesting Budapest will stop serving as Moscow’s spoiler inside the EU and NATO.

"Hungary May No Longer Be Putin’s Ally, but It Can’t Afford a Full Break," Paul Sonne, New York Times, 04.13.26.

  • Paul Sonne writes that Viktor Orban’s “crushing loss in Sunday’s election in Hungary deals a serious blow to the Kremlin,” even as “Moscow still retains significant energy leverage over the landlocked nation.” Peter Magyar’s Tisza party won on promises to “normalize tense relations with the European Union and NATO,” and he vowed to support “a free, European Hungary” and take “a cleareyed approach to Moscow,” the author notes. Yet Magyar also “signaled that he would not fully sever ties with Moscow,” given that Hungary imports “more than 80 percent of its natural gas and crude oil from Russia.”
  • According to Sonne, Orban had been “the European Union’s most vocal internal critic,” stalling responses to Russia’s invasion by blocking a €90 billion loan to Ukraine, sanctions packages, and EU accession talks for Kyiv, while his “continued purchases of Russian energy helped Moscow retain an economic foothold in Europe.” Analyst Andras Racz is quoted calling Orban “a pragmatic, corrupt ally” whom Russia is ready to “push … under the bus,” while Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov insists that “Hungary made its choice” and that Russia will continue “very pragmatic contacts” as “one of the most reliable suppliers of energy in the world.”
  • Mr. Magyar signaled that he would not fully sever ties with Moscow, embracing pragmatism given the energy dependency that Mr. Orban’s government has built up over 16 years in power. Sonne notes that Hungary is likely to stop being an EU spoiler on Ukraine, but that long-term gas contracts and a Soviet-built nuclear plant using Russian fuel mean “radical immediate changes are very, very rare,” so “Russia maintains certain leverage.”

“Moscow Without Orban: What Hungary’s New Prime Minister Changes for Russia,” Maxim Samorukov, Carnegie Politika, 04.13.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Samorukov argues that Viktor Orbán’s fall “confirms the trend he long embodied: the national agenda is more important than any other, ‘my country first of all,’” and that Hungary’s course “was never driven only by Orbán’s personal sympathies but by ‘objective necessity’ no leader can escape.” He stresses that Orbán stood out “less for being pro‑Russian than for being anti‑Ukrainian,” and that such skepticism of Ukraine’s EU integration “is becoming ever more popular in all countries of the eastern part of the EU,” which see Kyiv as “a direct and dangerous competitor for European subsidies, cheap jobs and agricultural markets.”
  • For Russia, he writes, the main change is symbolic: Moscow will lose “guaranteed Orbán vetoes” and “such close personal contacts,” but “this does not mean that with the change of Hungarian prime minister the EU will overnight turn into an effective machine for pressuring Moscow and supporting Kyiv.” Ties built on energy—Russian loans for Paks, gas resale, discount Druzhba crude—are “a significant part of the Hungarian economy,” and “no leader will want to cut them off just for Brussels’s praise.”
  • Magyar demands protection of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, is only prepared to let Ukraine into the EU after a referendum, and in the European Parliament he voted against granting Ukrainians a 90‑billion‑euro loan.

“‘One’s Own Shirt [Is Closer to the Body] Has Won Again,” Fyodor Lukyanov, Rossiiskaya Gazeta/Russia in Global Affairs, 04.13.26. Clues from Russian views. Machine-translated. (Russia in Global Affairs is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

  • Lukyanov says Viktor Orbán’s defeat “was no sensation,” given polls and “the factor of fatigue from the same faces,” but argues it “paradoxically confirms the trend he long embodied: the national agenda is more important than any other, ‘my country first of all’.” He notes that while Fidesz centered its campaign on Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “antihero and dangerous enemy,” the opposition “emphasized internal issues, the fight against corruption,” and presented normalizing ties with Europe “as a way to improve the life of the ordinary Hungarian,” which he calls “quite in the spirit of sovereigntism.”
  • He writes that Brussels is celebrating, having “dreamed of getting rid of Orbán,” and expects the new government quickly to unblock the €90 billion Ukraine package—“for Russia, the news is unpleasant,” though the European Commission would likely have found a way “even in the case of the previous cabinet.” Yet Lukyanov stresses that “the geopolitical situation and the problems facing Hungary will not change,” predicting Péter Magyar will have to “take more account of the rather dangerous realities” than he might like, including energy ties with Russia, dialogue with Moscow “in the interests of Hungary,” and contentious issues such as Druzhba pipeline flows and the Paks nuclear plant expansion.

“Orban Discusses U.S.-Russia Summit With Putin: Call Transcript,” Bloomberg, 04.07.26.

Ukraine:

“The Rule of Law in Ukraine—More Than Combating Corruption,” Susan Stewart, SWP, 04.08.26.

  • Stewart argues that “Russia’s war of aggression has not put an end to corruption in the country” and that, although Ukraine’s specialized bodies “play an important role in combating corruption,” its governance model “does not yet meet the requirements of the rule of law, allowing corruption to remain entrenched.” Anti‑corruption institutions “operate alongside a dysfunctional judicial system” that lets oligarchs “secure positions in the courts for individuals well disposed towards them or otherwise exercise influence over court decisions,” while presidents have “systematically sought to expand their powers” and extend control over the Prosecutor General’s Office and Constitutional Court.
  • She writes that “corruption has become an integral part of Ukraine’s governance system and cannot be brought under control without a transformation of that system,” stressing that “the fight against the oligarchic system is not being waged consistently” and that Zelenskyy’s government, like its predecessors, often “relies on individuals” and “expects [parliament] to rubber‑stamp the laws” it proposes. The full‑scale Russian invasion initially led some to think “no one would dare engage in corrupt practices,” but in reality “the consequences of the invasion have, in some respects, created conditions that encourage corruption” through massive aid inflows and reduced transparency.
  • Looking to EU accession, Stewart notes that “corruption is so deeply rooted in the country because the rule of law remains underdeveloped” and that the accession process “requires Ukraine to transform its governance system in order to fully comply with the Copenhagen criteria.” She insists that “checklists will not suffice”: a “broader approach” must strengthen judicial reform and legal education, make parties “more issue‑oriented and less dependent on specific personalities,” bolster independent media beyond “oligarchic pluralism,” and expand the coalition for the rule of law by engaging “businesspeople and business associations outside the oligarchic circles” alongside civil society and EU actors.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Power, Pathways, and Policy: Grounding Central Asia’s Digital Ambitions,” Aruzhan Meirkhanova, Carnegie Politika, 04.09.26.

  • Meirkhanova argues that Central Asia’s bid to become a digital hub will succeed only if “digital ambitions alone do not create digital infrastructure,” stressing the need to align the “three Ps of digital development: power, pathways, and policy.” She notes that as of 2025 Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan together have “just over 4,700 racks” of data-center capacity, with only “fifteen data centers” at Tier III and one meeting active-operation standards, so projects like Uzbekistan’s multibillion‑euro green data centers and Kazakhstan’s 100‑MW Akashi facility risk facing an “infrastructure tax” because grid reliability is too weak and investors are pushed toward building their own power plants.
  • On connectivity, she writes that lacking submarine links, Central Asia relies on terrestrial routes that “amplify vulnerability,” with Kazakhstan hosting about “40,000 kilometers of operational fiber” but only “about a third of the population” within 10 kilometers of a node. Externally, “most Central Asian traffic transits Russia,” with roughly “95% of Kazakhstan’s web traffic” and “approximately 80%” of its international bandwidth flowing through Russian networks—dependencies that “cascade downstream to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan” and make the region a “high‑risk environment” for hyperscalers.
  • Turning to policy, Meirkhanova warns that data localization and other “market‑governing regulations” introduced before power and connectivity are in place amount to a regulatory “entry fee” that discourages cloud investment; she notes that “hyperscale cloud providers have launched in over 200 regions worldwide, [but] none currently operate in Central Asia.” The lesson, she argues, is “not deregulation, but careful sequencing”: digital policy should “prioritize market‑enabling frameworks” and rely on “post‑implementation oversight,” so that regulation is “aligned with infrastructure realities” and can support building the power systems and diversified pathways needed for a sustainable hub.

“Iran Conflict Threatens Armenia-Azerbaijan Progress,” Joshua Kucera, Foreign Policy, 04.08.26.

  • Kucera argues that Trump’s war with Iran “is threatening to undo his achievement in the Caucasus,” namely the 2025 White House–brokered deal to launch the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) between Azerbaijan proper and Nakhchivan through southern Armenia. That formula—border control remaining Armenian but checks run by a private third‑country company in an Armenian‑American joint venture—helped unlock unprecedented confidence‑building: think‑tank visits, Azerbaijani fuel and transit to Armenia, and a January 2026 framework agreement, reinforced by Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit.
  • The new Iran conflict, however, endangers TRIPP because its first stage runs “within shouting distance of the Iranian border,” spooking investors, diverting Trump’s tiny foreign‑policy team (especially Steve Witkoff) away from the Caucasus, and potentially making Washington less keen on a project that would revive rail links benefiting Iran and Armenia. Officials in Yerevan and Baku fear U.S. attention will fade and timelines will slip, testing whether Armenia and Azerbaijan can sustain the peace process on their own or whether Trump’s personalized, opportunistic diplomacy will unravel.
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Endnotes

  1. Axios reported in the early afternoon (U.S. East Coast time) on April 13 that Pakistani, Egyptian and Turkish mediators will keep working with Washington and Tehran to try to close “remaining gaps” and revive U.S.-Iran talks before the ceasefire expires on April 21, with one regional source saying “the door is not closed yet… It’s a bazaar.” Vice President J.D. Vance’s team and Iran remain divided over freezing enrichment and removing enriched uranium, as well as the scale of sanctions relief, while CENTCOM prepares a naval blockade that “will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports.” (Axios, 04.13.26)
  2. The Trump administration allowed a sanctions waiver on Russian oil to expire April 11, ending a one‑month exemption that had let buyers legally purchase blacklisted Russian crude stored at sea. (New York Times, 04.13.26)
  3. Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced that Sergey Lavrov will pay an official visit to China on April 14–15 for talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The agenda will cover bilateral cooperation, “prospects for contacts at various levels” and coordination in the U.N., BRICS, SCO, G20, APEC and other forums, with a “substantial exchange of opinions” expected on the Ukraine war and developments in the Middle East. (Russian Foreign Ministry, 04.13.26)

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

AI was used in production of this digest.

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

Slider photo: Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, by Army.mil.

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