Russia Matters, 7/14/25
- While hosting NATO’s SG Mark Rutte on July 14, President Donald Trump unveiled a deal with this alliance that would send weapons to Ukraine within days while also threating Russia with stiff penalties in his renewed effort to end hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them [Ukraine] weapons and they [NATO countries] [are] going to be paying for them,” Trump was quoted by Wall Street Journal as saying in Rutte’s presence. During the same event the U.S. president also threatened Russia with “secondary tariffs” unless a deal to end the hostilities in Ukraine is reached by early September. “We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100%, you’d call them secondary tariffs,” Trump was quoted by Financial Times as saying. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later said Trump could choose to impose either tariffs or sanctions on countries that do business with Russia, according to Wall Street Journal. Last week saw Trump repeatedly state his unhappiness with Putin’s unwillingness to agree to an unconditional end of hostilities in Ukraine, promising a “major statement” on Russia on July 14. Thus, his July 14 threats came as no surprise, but they were also met with some skepticism. “It is unclear if… Putin will take Trump’s threat seriously,” Alexander Ward and his co-authors wrote in Wall Street Journal on July 14.“For a frequent flip-flopper like him [Trump], can anyone ever tell which flip or flop is for real?” Susan Glasser wondered in the New Yorker. “The president is a late and very reluctant convert to the approach of trying to confront and isolate Mr. Putin” and the approach he is taking “seems designed to keep him at least one arm’s length away from the conflict,” David Sanger and Maggie Haberman explained in New York Times. That Trump is “coming around on Ukraine” represents a decision that “isn’t isolationist or internationalist but realistic,” according to Peggy Noonan.
- “Russia’s factories have begun churning out vast quantities of attack drones over the past year, producing a deadly fleet that is now taking to Ukrainian skies in record numbers almost daily,” Matthew Luxmoore and Jane Lytvynenko reported in a July 10 article for Wall Street Journal. Writing for the same newspaper Jillian Kay Melchior also noted the surge in Russian drone production, as did Andrew Kramer of The New York Times. “As Russia’s defense industry continues to ramp up, military analysts expect Russia to routinely launch more than 1,000 drones per volley by autumn,” Kramer warned. These articles indicate that the mainstream U.S. media outlets are catching up with the recent changes in correlation of drone production in Ukraine and Russia in the latter’s favor. In the first and second year of Russia’s full-fledged invasion into Ukraine, such outlets as Wall Street Journal were reporting how use of drones by Ukraine helped to turn the tide in Kyiv’s favor while New York Times reported how “Ukraine has stayed ahead in the drones arm race.” In the third year of the war Forbes declared that “For the first time, Ukraine is launching more long-range drone attacks than Russia.” The coverage of the drone race began to change, however, in 2025. For instance, in January of this year, ECFR’s Ulrike Franke published an article on the web site of this think-tank that estimated that Russia was matching Ukraine’s pace of drone production. Five months later, the press was also noticing this change. For instance, The Times of London’s Anthony Loyd reported from Donbas: “Russia has taken the lead in the drone race, outproducing Kyiv in the manufacture and use of medium-range FPV drones and fiber optic variants that have changed the shape of the entire 1,200 km front line.” Loyd’s May 2025 article was echoed by Politico’s Veronika Melkozerova, who reported in June 2025, citing Zelensky himself, that “Ukraine produces about 100 long-range drones a day, while Russia has managed to scale up production to 300 a day and is aiming for 500.” Russian drone producers managed to boost long-range drone production from 15,000 in 2024 to more than 30,000 this year, as well as up to 2 million small tactical drones, according to Melkozerova.
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to nominate first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko as his next PM is a victory for his powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak for whom there appears to be little love lost in Washington. “Svyrydenko is considered a close ally” of Yermak, according to July 14 article in Financial Times. Apart from the new prime minister, changes are expected at education, health, culture, social policy and possibly finance, according to the Economist. The Economist reported on July 6 that a cabinet reshuffle is “imminent” and that is being driven by Yermak whose lecturing approach to diplomacy Americans despair at. While being allied with Yermak, Svyrydenko is also seen as having “strong ties with Donald Trump’s team after leading the minerals talks alongside U.S. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent,” according to Financial Times.