By Ben Aris, Substack, 10/28/26

Europe has written itself out of any role in the talks to end the war in Ukraine and, despite an enormous amount of bluster, has become totally irrelevant.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store called Vladimir Putin yesterday [10/27] – only the second time a European leader has talked to Putin since the start of the war (if you count the Kremlin allies Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban out of the list).

The first was French President Emmanuel Macron who talked to him last year, but admitted that he got nothing out of the conversation. Quelle surprise!

Sounds like the two Nords did get much further: the call was scheduled to last 20mins but instead they got an hour-long history lecture from Putin – who always does this and it predates the war as he did the same to Merkel when she was negotiating the Minsk I agreement. Turker Carlson was subject to the same lesson about “Vlad the Great” when he interviewed Putin – the big man clearly has a bee in his bonnet on Central European history and Russia’s right to whatever it wants.

Put another way: they didn’t talk about how to end the war.

More poignantly: this was not a negotiation or even an attempt to start peace talks.

That is not the reported substance of Putin’s conversation with Witkoff a week ago. At least Witkoff put some sort of deal on the table, even if Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy advisor, later said it didn’t contain much of interest to the Kremlin. However, since then there are reports now of the US going into business with Russia in oil and the Trump administration is also clearly interested in taking the Nord Stream pipeline over. So, that was a real conversation.

The call highlights how completely irrelevant the EU is in this whole saga other than wrecking its economy and emptying its own arsenal. Norway isn’t even a member of the EU. The Kremlin made it explicitly clear that it will not talk to the EU and both Nords were invited on the basis of being “neighbourly” countries. Stubb repeated this formula in his read out of the meeting. You can tell when Putin has someone by the balls as they trot out some Kremlin catch phrase when they want to butter him up. It used to be a single market “from Lisbon to Vladivostok” but I haven’t heard that one for years.

And the meeting also highlighted the growing disunity in the EU on the Russia question. Now serious talks are on again, the EU is having another go at finding someone to act as interlocutor. Stubb is a leading candidate (but I still think Schoeder should be a contender). However, the boys were immediately roasted by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, a leading Russian hawk, for even deigning to talk to VVP.

Of course, if Europe was really serious about opening discussions with Putin, the two to go are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, but it’s crystal clear that the Kremlin will refuse to talk to either one. Indeed, the Kremlin has already said that it will reject any suggestions originating in Brussels out of hand.

And Kallas is so rabidly anti-Russian that even her colleagues are unhappy with her “foreign policies.”

She says bonkers things every time she stands in front of a mic and her whole plan is to “increase the pressure on Russia” until it eventually collapses and breaks into pieces. And then she oversees a process that gutted the 21st sanctions package by including a carve out that allows Greek tankers to continue to work for Russia’s shadow fleet. No wonder Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is starting to look desperate. She has become an embarrassment to the institution and even internally she appears to have been completely sidelined as if a real but extremely delicate process does begin, her clumsy approach would almost certainly run it off the tracks.

The more subtle point here is that the Kremlin hates dealing with multinational bodies, but the EU first and foremost. It is like bilateral talks as you can prey on national interests in two-way talks but can’t when any deal you suggest has to be approved by committee.

Tellingly the end of the phone call discussed security issues in the Baltics, where presumably Putin offered some trinkets to entice the Fins in particular; as IntelliNews reported, the Finnish economy has been cut to tatters by the bust up with Russia – worse even than the damage done to Germany.

Was the call progress? Call me cynical (with a lot of justification) but all I saw was more political kabuki. The Nords have nothing to offer. The Kremlin has a chance to show “we are not the problem” – a game that both Putin and Zelenskiy are playing at the moment – and nothing was agreed. Stubb and Store are not even the right people. It should have been von der Leyen and/or Kallas on that call and they have been ruled out from the start.

Like I said before this round of talks are “highly likely,” as the West loves to say, doomed to failure.

***

Here’s a different take:

Is Europe starting to come to its senses on Ukraine?

By Matthew Blackburn, Responsible Statecraft, 10/27/26

The Trump administration’s latest initiative to end the war is creating heartburn in Europe.

“We have to pressure the aggressor to stop the war, not the victim to surrender,” said European Union High Representative Kaja Kallas. “Squeezing Ukraine is not the right approach, and that’s why Europe is standing by Ukraine.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, insists Russia has no genuine desire for peace, pointing in particular to Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilians.

This moral language frames the conflict as a zero-sum, good-versus-evil struggle. In this light, Europeans have no choice but to unite behind Ukraine to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But not all European leaders are talking this way. The press conference in Oslo on Oct. 20 featuring Zelenskyy, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb was full of constructive language about ending the conflict. Stubb said the Oslo summit was the result of “substantive progress” made “under the radar.” Støre emphasised that “Europe has to be at the table” to secure a “lasting peace.” Europe, it seems, is not united on a negotiated end to the conflict.

Then on Tuesday, the two held a call with Putin unofficially, in an effort at de-escalation, according to reports. “We are neighboring countries to Russia,” Stubb said in a statement afterwards. “The outcome of this war will have a direct impact on our and the broader European security. Ending the war requires direct discussions.”

The Oslo summit was no bolt from the blue; Finnish and Norwegian representatives have been preparing the ground for several months. At last week’s Warsaw Security Forum, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide avoided the usual binary of Ukraine’s victory or capitulation. He stressed that since the Europeans are now paying for the war, they should also lead the diplomacy to end it. Eide noted that a peace agreement could secure a democratic, independent Ukraine integrated into the EU with 80% of its original territory. Advancing this point among more hawkish European colleagues, Eide struck a tone of hope rather than fear. In an interview last Saturday, Eide noted that Europe must contribute concrete proposals for a post-war security architecture: “in the long run, we need to return to a normal relationship with Russia after the war (….) some kind of order must be restored.”

During his recent visit to the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Stubb presented a complementary argument. Restating his case for a “value-based realism,” he argued that European states should be faithful to their values but would not resolve the conflict by rigidly clinging to the moral high ground. Stubb urged the audience to keep “cooler heads”; fostering a “war mentality” would make it near impossible to conceive of peace.

Eide and Stubb are moving in a different direction from those who claim “victory” over Russia – however defined – is a prerequisite for future European security. They reject the mantra of ex-NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg that “weapons are the way to peace” and emphasize the military reality that neither side has the resources to win decisively.

This is a noble recognition of reality. Offensive actions from both sides have repeatedly failed to produce a breakthrough. Costs keep rising for both warring parties, while gains have become increasingly meagre. Europe, Ukraine, and Russia are stuck in a war that cannot be won on the terms set by either side.

Continuing the current course brings problems for all sides. Putin faces an overheating economy and increasing social fatigue and anxiety. Even if Russia destroys more and more Ukrainian infrastructure from the air, land offensives are likely to incur heavy losses. Ukraine’s situation is even tougher. Its chronic manpower shortages have led to intensified forced mobilization and increased social strains. Blockaded at sea and bombarded from the air, Ukraine is also short of money and weapons, constantly appealing to Western allies to plug the gaps.

The European coalition behind Ukraine faces serious problems of its own. Many European states are facing a sovereign debt crisis as war costs mount. The EU has been unable to persuade Belgium to make use of Russia’s frozen assets to fund the war. All the while, the dirty reality is that, since the war began, Europe has spent more on Russian energy imports than on weapons for Ukraine.

At the same time, Ukraine’s campaign of intensified deep strikes on Russia – supported by the Europeans and greenlit by the Trump Administration in spring 2026 – has failed to pressure Putin into a ceasefire. Without U.S. intelligence and weapons supplies, Europe lacks the military leverage to continue this effort on its own. There is no viable European war plan, only reactive crisis management and ad hoc solutions about Ukraine, coupled with repeated hyping of Russia’s “hybrid war” threat.

Tuesday’s meeting in Oslo provides a way out of this mess. As Stubb said at Tuesday’s press conference: “Peace requires patience. But unfortunately, war does not wait. People are dying each and every day. Our job is to do what we can to end it.” Norway and Finland are communicating the urgency of ending a senseless war. Referring to the recent spat between Trump and Zelensky, Støre advised against dwelling on past disagreements: “What matters now is what lies ahead of us.”

On the same day, Kaja Kallas looked back in anger. She accused the Trump administration of trying to “push Ukraine into surrender” on “Putin’s terms.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, for her part, presented Ukraine as Europe’s only protection: “If we allow Ukraine to fall, we will open the way for Russia to advance into other parts of Europe.”

One can understand fears that, if Ukraine is rendered neutral with limits on its armed forces, Russia would hold the whip hand over Europe. Nobody wants to let Moscow dictate the terms of the European security architecture through violence. But at this point, Europe’s rejection of a “dirty deal” could mean impotently watching Ukraine’s destruction over the next six months. How would this outcome improve European security or prestige?

Norway and Finland have offered the most constructive European response to U.S. diplomacy since Trump returned to the White House. They offer Europe a new language of patient diplomacy to replace maximalist rhetoric. This is in line with both countries’ previous experience mediating and building bridges with Russia. It also recognizes a basic fact: all protracted wars not settled decisively on the battlefield — which is to say, the vast majority of wars — end in negotiated settlements between the aggressor and the defender. America’s signature is absolutely necessary to secure such an outcome.

Mainstream analysis seems unable to accept these realities. It is stuck in moral posturing or fearmongering. There is still little serious discussion of what compromises might be struck. The 28-point plan that U.S.-Russian diplomacy developed in 2025 should not be equated with Ukraine’s capitulation, nor is it a recipe for turning Ukraine into Belarus. Ukraine would enter the EU, receive reconstruction assistance, and retain armed forces on a level comparable to Finland’s. It is time to return to the core points on which a deal must be struck.

Russia has responded positively to the proposals sent from Oslo. Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. have agreed to a three-way summit in November, according to Zelensky. The key question now is whether other European governments will take the Oslo initiative seriously and agree on who can represent Europe in these talks. Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, has cautiously welcomed the idea that Alexander Stubb could represent Europe in the negotiations.

Finland and Norway’s more moderate language is a crucial first step toward a shared European understanding that continuing the war in its current form is self-defeating. As Eide observed at the U.N. last month, “diplomacy can work – if we allow it to.”

But first, Europe must decide: will it support or sabotage the U.S. effort to build a diplomatic off-ramp?

By Thomas Farzi, Responsible Statecraft, 10/21/26

These days, barely a week goes by in Europe without a drone sighting, a fire or a power outage being blamed on Russia. We’re told that these incidents are all part of a relentless, and escalating, “hybrid war” that Moscow is waging against the continent.

Tensions escalated dramatically last month after Germany formally attributed to Moscow a “failed” drone attack on Leipzig/Halle airport. But does the evidence support Western claims that Russia is engaged in a systematic hybrid war against Europe?

Various datasets and reports are regularly cited as evidence, including from Leiden University, the Soufan Center, the Associated Press and defense-related think tanks like the IISS, CSIS and GLOBSEC. Taken individually, each paints a bleak picture. Read side by side, however, they tell a very different story. For starters, the numbers don’t add up: depending on the report, Russia has launched between 52 and 255 hybrid attacks in Europe since February 2022, a fivefold discrepancy for what is supposed to be the same campaign.

The reason is that there is no agreed-upon definition of what a hybrid attack even is. The IISS itself admits that the term is “amorphous.” Some reports only count acts of physical sabotage; others include pro-Kremlin stickers, graffiti, peace demonstrations and even the Russian Navy passing through the English Channel. In other words, it is a concept that can be used to include almost anything. Moreover, in most cases, the evidence linking Russia is very weak or, in fact, non-existent. Evidence of Russian responsibility usually consists of news articles reporting that Western officials suspect so. If a government claims “Russia did it,” the case ends up on the list.

Yet many of the most widely publicized cases of alleged Russian sabotage — the “jamming” of the GPS signal of von der Leyen’s plane, the Baltic cable incidents in late 2024, a crashed DHL cargo plane, a fire at Heathrow Airport in 2025 — ended up collapsing upon basic scrutiny. In each case, Russian involvement was ultimately ruled out. The signal of von der Leyen’s plane, it turned out, was never lost. The Baltic cables were damaged by anchors dragged by Chinese- and Hong Kong-flagged ships, with investigators finding no evidence of intent. The DHL crash in Vilnius was caused by pilot error, and the Heathrow fire by a fault in a substation that had been identified years earlier but never fixed.But how many people actually know this, considering that such retractions generally receive a fraction of the coverage of the original allegations?

The same goes for the drone panic that swept Europe in the fall of 2025, when near-daily sightings caused the closure of several airports across the continent. Leaders openly blamed Moscow, yet virtually all the “Russian drone” sightings turned out to be unfounded: a Dutch investigation of some 60 incidents found “much panic and hardly any evidence of Russian involvement,” with many sightings turning out to be hobby drones, planes, helicopters, satellites or even stars.

Where Russian drones have indeed entered NATO airspace — in Poland, Romania, Moldova and Lithuania — this has almost always occurred near the Ukrainian border, during attacks on Ukrainian targets. Even the Lithuanian president has stated that the latest such incident was likely caused by a drone that veered off course because of Ukrainian jamming. This appears much more like fallout from the war next door than a deliberate campaign of incursions. There was one incident where a Russian drone was shot down deep in Polish territory, but even in this case Western intelligence officials “privately” admitted that the Russian incursion was probably not intentional.

And then there’s the Leipzig/Halle case. Following Germany’s official accusation of Russian involvement, NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte was quick to declare that “the evidence is clear.” This may very well be true, but since no evidence has actually been made public, we simply have to take the German authorities’ word for it. As a German professor told EUobserver, the attribution “may be plausible, but there is evidently no proof.”

Ultimately, once all the speculative and unproven “incidents” are set aside, what remains are a handful of demonstrable sabotage cases that have led to convictions, from a warehouse arson in London to torched buses in Prague,an IKEA fire in Vilnius and some GPS-tracker parcels sent toward Ukraine, allegedly to scout targets and transport routes for sabotage. Even in these cases, however, the courts have convicted low-level recruits, often contacted by anonymous handles on Telegram, and a connection to the Russian state or its proxies was established at a contested trial in only a handful of cases — notably the London warehouse fire and the GPS-tracker parcels in Germany — while elsewhere it rested on guilty pleas or closed hearings. But even assuming that Russia is indeed behind all these cases, the picture that emerges is one of few sporadic incidents with limited damage — hardly the “war” that European leaders routinely invoke.

So is this just a case of collective panic fuelled by click-addicted media? Or, given that the claims of a Russian “hybrid war” against Europe appear to rest on little more than propaganda, is there a concerted effort by the European Union-NATO establishment to condition citizens to believe that Europe is under attack from Russia?

The narrative clearly serves a variety of interests. For starters, it helps governments maintain support for an increasingly unpopular war in Ukraine and for a continental rearmament campaign that will require painful cuts to spending on other sectors. As a report by the Latvian Institute of International Affairs put it, the “nebulous tagline” of hybrid warfare would appear to be driven “by the need to goose flagging defense budgets and waning NATO cohesion.” It has worked: the drone panic has led to increased counter-drone spending at both the EU and NATO levels. Meanwhile, intelligence services have invoked the threat of sabotage to gain broader powers.

The specter of “Russian interference” also offers a broader authoritarian dividend, justifying everything from online censorship to the repression of dissent to election management — most egregiously in Romania, where an entire election was annulled because of an alleged Russian disinformation campaign for which no evidence of Russian involvement was ever provided. More recently, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, amid a push for greater EU ties, said it was “clear” that Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum, without providing any evidence, even though several investigations have found little or no evidence to support this claim.

One may conclude that, to the extent that a “hybrid war” is being waged against Europe, it is being waged by the EU-NATO establishment itself against its own population, in the form of a prolonged campaign of psychological warfare aimed at inflating the Russian threat.

What is most concerning is the risk that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. NATO countries continue to enable — through intelligence, satellite and targeting support — Ukrainian deep strikes on Russia, including on civilian infrastructure, and each attack makes Russian retaliation against NATO territory more likely. If and when such an attack comes, it would be framed as an unprovoked escalation of Russia’s ongoing “hybrid war,” leaving little room for European restraint.

This is a classic security dilemma. In such a climate, it would take very little for a “hybrid war” that so far largely exists only on paper to rapidly evolve into a hot war between nuclear-armed powers.

In Italy, the expression “strategy of tension” evokes a dark period, from the late 60s to the early 80s, in which intelligence services and secret paramilitary networks operating under NATO auspices inflated the terrorist threat to frighten the electorate, including by engaging in terrorist acts that in some cases were then blamed on the left. European leaders should be wary of reviving such a strategy.

This article draws on an in-depth investigation published on the author’s Substack.

By Kautilya The Contemplator, Substack, 10/17/26

In the autumn of 2022, the Russian military confronted a problem that has haunted armies throughout history. After months of fighting in Ukraine, it was facing a manpower problem. After all, the stated 150,000-190,000 force that went into Ukraine in February 2022 turned out to be insufficient for the scale and duration of the conflict that followed. Instead, it had to re-orient itself for a longer war of attrition that would require rebuilding its military strength while continuing to fight.

After months of fighting that resulted in the loss of experienced officers, soldiers and equipment, Russian forces did not end combat due to exhaustion. Over the following months and years, Russia mobilized its reserves and replenished existing formations. Damaged armored vehicles were repaired and returned to the battlefield. Training and re-training of combat veterans helped reinforce the army. Factories like Uralvagonzavod, Almaz-Antey, Kurganmashzavod and Kalashnikov Concern began to churn out equipment for a conflict whose demands were only growing.

This raises a fundamental question that many analyses of military power often overlook. How does an army regenerate itself while the battlefield continues to consume the very resources it needs to survive? After all, replacing losses is not the same as restoring combat power. A 100,000-strong experienced army cannot just be replaced by recruiting another 100,000 men. Similarly, a repaired tank can restore a weapon to service, but its operational value still depends on reliability, ammunition, maintenance and a trained crew.

The main distinction here is between replacing losses and restoring combat power. Soviet military thinkers studied this problem extensively. The Red Army saw several of its formations wiped out in the first half of the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet response went beyond just mobilizing more men to building an elaborate relationship between the General Staff, training academies, military production facilities, transport networks and the wider economy. Historical and contemporary Russian military thought reveals that the military strength of a state cannot just be measured by the army that it deploys today but also the combat power it generates tomorrow. As such, the attrition war in Ukraine should be understood as a contest between two systems of military regeneration where each side is attempting to restore its own fighting strength while destroying the other’s ability to do the same. As battlefield realities have demonstrated over the past years, Russia has gradually targeted and degraded Ukraine’s ability to regenerate military power over time while outproducing all of NATO in equipment and armaments.

The Soviet Foundation: Why Armies Must be Rebuilt Before They Are Destroyed

Soviet military thought viewed military power not as a fixed quantity but as something that had to be continuously reproduced. Vladimir Triandafilov discusses this problem in his 1929 work The Nature of the Operations of Modern Armies (Характер операций современных армий). He argued that mobilization depended on available manpower and the economic capacity to equip and sustain it. Numerical strength alone was insufficient and he warned against the excessive multiplication of divisions:

«Такое (тройное) развертывание сильно понизило бы качество войск и поставило под большое сомнение их боеспособность»

“Such a threefold expansion would seriously diminish troop quality and cast considerable doubt about their combat capability.”1

Triandafilov had identified a fundamental limitation of military mobilization in which organizational expansion could outpace the availability of trained officers, specialists and effective command structures. An army could increase its number of divisions without proportionately increasing its combat power. This distinction between nominal strength and actual fighting effectiveness is what must be understood when assessing the combat effectiveness of Russian and Ukrainian formations today.

On June 25, 1941, three days after the German invasion, the Soviet High Command issued Stavka Directive No. 0025 organizing the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd Armies under Marshal Semyon Budyonny as a reserve grouping. This was among the first steps in the process of ensuring sustained combat power. While the assembly of these armies was not a uniquely Soviet practice and all major armies routinely maintain strategic reserves, what mattered was the attempt to organize additional military power just three days into the German invasion, while the initial defensive campaign by the frontline Red Army formations was already underway.

The scale of Soviet force regeneration became evident during 1942 when between July and November, two tank armies, 80 rifle divisions, 53 rifle brigades and 70 tank brigades were withdrawn into reserve for restoration.2 General Sergey Shtemenko describes the High Command’s effort to rebuild its strategic strength following the Battle of Stalingrad. He states:

«Окончательного перелома в войне невозможно было достичь без создания сильных и разнообразных резервов».3

“A decisive turning point in the war could not be achieved without creating strong and varied reserves.”

Shtemenko writes that the Stavka possessed four reserve armies on March 1, 1943 that became ten by April 1. These included combined-arms and tank armies.4 This process of rebuilding formations while combat continued helped create the conditions for the Red Army’s transition from the defensive struggles of 1942 to the sustained strategic offensives of 1943.

The Soviet military textbook Tactics (Тактика) subsequently discusses a particularly revealing principle concerning the restoration of combat power:

«Восстановление боеспособности подразделений и частей осуществляется обычно в прежней организационной структуре, а иногда и путем создания сводных формирований. Оно должно проводиться в сроки, обеспечивающие упреждение противника в переходе к активным действиям».5

“Combat capability is normally restored within existing organizational structures, but sometimes through the creation of composite formations. Restoration must be completed in time to preempt the enemy’s transition to active operations.”

Time played a critical role in ensuring that combat power was restored quickly to prevent the enemy from exploiting a weakness. As such, Soviet commanders often consolidated surviving troops and equipment into new combat-ready (or composite) formations to continue combat rather than regenerate every depleted unit to its original strength.

The parallels with Russia’s current campaign are instructive. In June 2022, three months after the start of the conflict, the Russian military began assembling the 3rd Army Corps, drawing from volunteer formations recruited from different Russian regions. These units were brought under a larger military command structure with training and preparation undertaken before their deployment. Following the partial mobilization announcement in September 2022, Moscow began expanding its reserve formations. In June 2023, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the creation of a reserve army and an army corps with 3,786 pieces of military equipment allocated to them.6 By October, nine trained and replenished reserve regiments had been established. By December, every combined-arms army had a reserve regiment.

A June 2026 assessment by the Institute for the Study of War identified ten newly formed divisions since 2022 including the 67th, 70th and 72nd Motor Rifle Divisions, the 104th Airborne Division and two naval infantry divisions.7 Even though these developments illustrate Russia’s effort to expand military organization while sustaining frontline operations, the new divisions may not have reached their full combat readiness as yet.

The Army That Repaired Itself: The Soviet System of Battlefield Regeneration

Restoring the combat effectiveness of forces already engaged on the battlefield was as important as creating, training and equipping strategic reserves. This required an organized system capable of repairing damaged equipment and returning them to combat to ensure the continued tempo of operations. Formations could not consistently rely on receiving newly manufactured equipment.

General Alexey Ivanovich Radzievsky assessed this problem in significant detail in his book Tank Strike (Танковый удар) drawing on the experience of Soviet tank armies during the Great Patriotic War. The 3rd Guards Tank Army during the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive of July-August 1944 provides a revealing illustration. Radzievsky notes that the number of armored vehicles and self-propelled guns repaired during the operation exceeded the army’s initial armored strength. Many damaged vehicles were being repaired and returned to combat repeatedly. He recalls:

«Опыт минувшей войны показал, что не менее 60% боевых машин при подготовке операции и 85–90% боевых машин в ходе наступления прибывало на пополнение после ремонта. Следовательно, восстановление танков и САУ являлось главным источником восполнения потерь».8

“The experience of the past war demonstrated that at least 60% of combat vehicles received as replacements during preparations for an operation, and 85-90% during an offensive, came from repairs. Consequently, restoring tanks and self-propelled guns was the principal means of replacing equipment losses.”

This distinction between temporarily disabled vehicles and an irrecoverable loss was fundamental to maintaining combat power. This historical experience provides another framework for understanding the Russian campaign in Ukraine. Russian forces have employed forward repair facilities to recover damaged vehicles and return them to service. According to Russian officials, certain battlefield repairs averaged 2-3 days.9

During the 2022-24 period which witnessed the highest use of armored equipment, Russia’s established repair and refurbishment infrastructure offered several advantages in turnaround times relative to Western-supplied Ukrainian systems that depended on specialized maintenance facilities outside of Ukraine. Damaged M1A1 Abrams and Leopard tanks required evacuation to repair facilities in Poland or Germany. German PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers also had to be serviced outside of Ukraine. Shortages of specialized mechanics and spare parts compounded the problem. The Polish Center for Eastern Studies reported that such arrangements could remove equipment from service for weeks.10 This difference illustrates Radzievsky’s central insight that the interval between equipment being disabled and its return to combat is an important determinant of military endurance.

A significant advantage for Russia has also been the enormous material reserve of armored vehicles, hulls, engines and components that it inherited from the Soviet arsenal. This has enabled factories to restore and modernize equipment without manufacturing every vehicle from scratch thereby playing a critical role in the speed of regenerating equipment. At the same time, Soviet-era reserves are finite and cannot indefinitely substitute for new production.

The Arsenal Behind the Army: The Economics of Force Regeneration

Soviet military planners understood that mobilization and battlefield repairs alone could not sustain a prolonged war. The industrial capacity of the state mattered as much as the strength of the armed forces. Here, Nikolai Voznesensky, the Soviet First Deputy Premier who oversaw wartime economic planning through Gosplan (the State Planning Committee) provides some useful insights. In his work The War Economy of the USSR During the Great Patriotic War (Военная экономика СССР в период Отечественной войны) he describes how industrial capacity had to be re-organized and expanded while the war was already consuming its output. A key principle that he highlights is how the economy had to be able to absorb disruption while simultaneously expanding production. Reserves of productive capacity, machinery, fuel, raw materials and skilled labor were as indispensable to sustaining warfare. He states:

«Опыт показал, что в современной войне выигрывает тот, кто обладает производственными, людскими, сырьевыми и другими материальными резервами».11

“Experience has shown that in modern warfare, victory belongs to the side possessing reserves of productive capacity, manpower, raw materials and other material resources”

Expanding output despite significant constraints on labor, machinery and raw materials was a significant achievement. The evacuation of factories, re-organization of industrial processes and concentration of resources on military requirements enabled Soviet industry to rebuild its productive capacity. Industrial regeneration preceded the regeneration of military formations.

Russian industrial capacity today has markedly increased though is not on the same war footing as in the 1940s. In June 2025, Rostec reported that its production of artillery ammunition had increased by 30% during 2024.12 Ammunition for tanks and other armored vehicles more than doubled.

Voznesensky also observed that the labor required to manufacture a T-34 tank fell dramatically during the war:

«Затрата живого труда на танковых заводах в производстве танка Т-34 уменьшилась с 8 тыс. человекочасов в 1941 году до 3,7 тыс. человекочасов в 1943 году».13

“The expenditure of direct labor at tank factories in the production of the T-34 declined from 8,000 worker-hours in 1941 to 3,700 worker-hours in 1943.”

This reduction of nearly 54 percent shows a less obvious dimension of Soviet wartime mobilization. Industrial regeneration also depended on increasing the military output obtainable from scarce labor and manufacturing capacity. The Red Army was able to rapidly replenish its formations even as it was incurring significant losses in men and material on the frontlines.

The deeper insight from the Soviet experience is that force regeneration entails the continuous conversion of economic resources into military power. The connection between Shtemenko’s reserve armies and Voznesensky’s industrial reserves is fundamental. While the battlefield devours resources, the economic and mobilization systems in the rear must continuously work to replenish them. The ability of a military to successfully conduct a prolonged campaign depends on how optimally these processes remain connected and ensure that regeneration outpaces attrition. Frontline strategic reserves depend on reserves of productive capacity in the rear. Both are components of the same system of military endurance.

Destroying the Enemy’s Capacity to Regenerate

Russia’s stated war objective of Ukraine’s de-militarization assumes a clearer meaning in light of this analysis of force regeneration. Destroying existing formations is insufficient if they can be replenished and restored to combat. Since the conflict started in 2022, Ukraine’s armies have been reconstituted several times through extensive Western financial and military support.

Initially, Ukraine, with NATO support, mobilized hundreds of thousands of personnel and established foreign-supported training and equipment pipelines. Its 2023 summer counteroffensive highlighted the difficulties of converting new recruits and Western weapons into combat effective formations, especially when training was compressed and there was a shortage of experienced officers. By early 2025, the pressure was even more visible. Many Ukrainian brigades were operating significantly below strength.

Replacing existing losses was increasingly consuming the manpower needed for future reserves. This was occurring at a time when Russia was applying sustained pressure across the entire frontline forcing Ukraine to disperse scarce reserves. At the same time Russia was striking the core infrastructure needed for force regeneration such as training and recruitment centers. In 2026, the rising intensity of strikes on production facilities, ports and energy systems has degraded industrial capacity which will further disrupt the process of regenerating combat power.

The decisive measure of attrition is not the destruction inflicted on the adversary’s forces but degrading its ability to restore effective combat strength. The tragic daily scenes of men in Ukraine being forced into vehicles against their will by police and military recruitment personnel to be sent to the front does not solve the regeneration problem. Ukrainian frontline units are depleted and troops have not been rotated out. Despite these conditions, the Ukrainians are continuing to hold out, but for how long?

The Enduring Lesson of Soviet Military Experience

The enduring lesson of Soviet military thought is that combat power must be continuously reproduced. Triandafilov understood the limitations of numerical mobilization. Shtemenko demonstrated the importance of strategic reserves. Radzievsky underscored the operational value of battlefield repairs. Voznesensky identified the industrial reserves necessary to sustain military production. Together, their insights describe an entire ecosystem dedicated to preserving and restoring military power.

Russia’s experience in Ukraine reflects a continuation of this tradition. Its ability to generate manpower, restore equipment, produce substantial amounts of hardware and ammunition has enabled it to sustain the conflict for this long. For Ukraine, the problem is also consequential. Western support can replenish weapons (now increasingly drones) and support its struggling economy but it cannot immediately create experienced officers, command structures or replenish depleted formations. Russia’s attrition strategy is not just focused on destroying Ukraine’s existing fighting capability but exhausting the entire ecosystem, including Western support, that supports regenerating its ability to continue fighting.

The decisive question is therefore not which army inflicts greater destruction, but which can sustain and restore effective combat power longer than its adversary. The army that matters tomorrow is not merely the one that survives today’s battles, but the one that can be rebuilt while those battles are still being fought.

References available at original link here.

By Jeffrey Sachs, CommonDreams, 10/20/26

This proposed settlement—designed to help end a conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation—addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms.

The war in Ukraine can be ended permanently on terms that protect Ukraine’s statehood, meet Russia’s security concerns, and lay the foundation for a durable European security order. As another round of negotiations gears up in Norway, I propose a settlement concluded as a single package, signed by Ukraine and Russia, adopted by a vote of the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter, and guaranteed jointly by the five permanent members of the Council together with other states that choose to join. The proposal rests on the principle of indivisible security set out in the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris.

The package would have four core commitments.

The first is Ukraine’s permanent neutrality, adopted in a constitutional law on the model of Austria’s law of 1955, which would return Ukraine to the founding choice of its Declaration of State Sovereignty of 1990. Ukraine would join no military alliance and host no foreign bases or forces, whether of NATO, the European Union, their member states, or Russia. Neutrality would not mean disarmament, and Ukraine would retain armed forces for its own defense.
 

The second is that Ukraine would pursue its candidacy for membership in the European Union as a permanently neutral state, with a neutrality protocol in its accession treaty on the model of Ireland’s, and Russia would affirm that Ukraine’s membership in the EU is consistent with Russia’s security.

The third is an armistice line drawn along the line of contact on the date of signature. Each side would exercise de facto jurisdiction on its side of the line, neither would recognize the other’s territorial claims, and both would renounce force in any future adjustment. This formula is compatible with both countries’ constitutions, which bar or severely restrict the cession of territory.
 

The fourth is the end of NATO enlargement eastward. At signature the North Atlantic Council would declare that NATO will not admit Ukraine or other new members in Eastern Europe or the South Caucasus, withdrawing the Bucharest pledge of 2008.
 

The settlement would take effect as a permanent end of hostilities on signature, not as a temporary ceasefire, and its provisions would be implemented in stages under international verification. No element would be negotiated in isolation, and no party would be asked to make a concession in advance of signature.

The territorial arrangements are designed to address the concerns and claims of both sides. Ukrainian forces would withdraw from the part of Donetsk region that Ukraine now controls, which would become a demilitarized special zone. Russian forces would not enter it, the existing local civil administration would continue to function, and its final status would be left to negotiation. Russia would withdraw from the areas it holds in Dnipropetrovsk region and from the Kinburn Spit. A Northern Security Zone would be demilitarized on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border, and Russian forces would leave the areas they hold in Kharkiv and Sumy regions as Ukrainian forces withdraw from their side. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would remain under Russian control with IAEA safety oversight and would sell an agreed share of its electricity to Ukraine at cost.
 

A demilitarized belt would run along both sides of the armistice line, with heavy weapons and long-range strike systems withdrawn to agreed distances, and mutual ceilings on forces would apply in the border regions on both sides. In the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, commercial navigation would be free for all Ukrainian and Russian ports, and attacks on shipping and ports would be prohibited.
 

The settlement in Ukraine should also begin the repair of European security as a whole. NATO and Russia would agree on a moratorium on ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Europe, refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any additional state, and restore the NATO-Russia Council. Normal diplomatic relations would be restored on both sides. The parties would convene the first summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe since 2010 to entrust the OSCE with monitoring the settlement, verifying arms limits, and overseeing the provisions on rights.
 

Questions of language, education, culture, and religion would be resolved according to European standards, with the Russian language treated on the same basis as Ukraine’s other minority languages, and Russia would accept the same obligations toward Ukrainian speakers and religious communities on its side of the line. All obligations concerning extremism and incitement would be mutual and monitored by the OSCE. Prisoners of war would be exchanged on an all-for-all basis, detained civilians released, and separated children reunited with their families.
 

Sanctions would be lifted during 2027. Russia’s immobilized sovereign assets would also be released, and private property seized or immobilized on both sides would be restored. An international reconstruction fund administered by the European Investment Bank would finance reconstruction on both sides of the line, with contributions from all parties, Russia included, in a common effort rather than as reparations. Gas transit through Ukraine could resume wherever there are willing buyers, without any commitment by the European Union to purchase Russian gas.
 

A report of serious violation by an OSCE monitoring mission of unarmed observers from states outside NATO would trigger consultations among the guarantors and referral to the Security Council. Ukraine would lift martial law and hold elections under OSCE observation, and the newly elected Verkhovna Rada would ratify the settlement and adopt the constitutional law on neutrality, while the Russian Federal Assembly would ratify it at the same stage.

This proposed settlement addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms. Europe has been largely absent from the design of the peace. By putting forward such a framework, European governments can take the lead in building Europe’s indivisible security and help end a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation between nuclear powers.

Moscow Times, 10/19/26

President Vladimir Putin on Monday approved a major reshuffle of top government officials, coming weeks after Russia held parliamentary elections that handed the ruling United Russia party its largest-ever majority.

The proposed personnel changes would replace nearly half of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s deputy prime ministers, according to independent journalist Farida Rustamova.

Rustamova said Dmitry Grigorenko’s removal from the post of chief of government staff was unexpected given his role as Mishustin’s “right-hand man” and his position being among “the most important in the government.” 

Mishustin’s spokesman later said Grigorenko himself had requested to be transferred to another post. Mishustin nominated First Deputy Finance Minister Irina Okladnikova to replace Grigorenko. If lawmakers approve her candidacy, she will become the first woman to ever hold the position of chief of government staff.

In other notable changes, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov will go on to serve as a deputy prime minister in addition to remaining in his role at the Finance Ministry, a post he has held since 2011. Siluanov previously held a dual position as deputy prime minister from 2018 to 2020 under former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Russian political analysts described the reshuffle as “a major strengthening of the fiscal leadership” as officials focus on increasing state budget revenues. The lower-house State Duma must now approve the nominations.

Transportation Minister Andrei Nikitin was nominated to become deputy prime minister tasked with overseeing the development of Russia’s transportation sector, among other things. The vacancy was left open after Vitaly Savelyev resigned following his election to the State Duma in late September.

Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia, was tapped to succeed Nikitin as transportation minister.

Primorye region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako was also nominated to serve as deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District. He will replace Yury Trutnev, who sources told the Vedomosti newspaper could be appointed to another Kremlin post.

The reshuffle follows State Duma elections last month, which renewed the ranks of parliament and came as Russian officials scramble to find new sources of economic growth amid strained government finances, increasingly burdensome taxes and high interest rates.

State Duma leadership was reportedly alerted over the weekend to hold last-minute meetings on Monday to approve the cabinet nominations and schedule confirmation votes. Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin later announced that votes on the nominations will take place on Wednesday.