Russia Matters, 8/29/25

1. A U.K.- and France-led “coalition of the willing” has pledged postwar protection for Ukraine, but European officials admit to Financial Times that European troop deployments would require support by the U.S.The latter has already agreed to provide “strategic enablers,” including intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, command and control and air defense assets, but its consent is contingent on commitments by European capitals to deploy tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine, according to the officials interviewed by Financial Times. Even with fighting showing no signs of subsiding, Western capitals have sketched out a rough post-war plan that would involve a demilitarized zone, patrolled by neutral peacekeeping troops from a third country agreed by Ukraine and Russia. A far more robust border behind that would be defended by Ukrainian troops armed and trained by NATO militaries, according to the plan as reported by Financial Times. However, European plans to send thousands of troops into Ukraine¹ post-peace deal face skepticism from the public and parliaments, especially in Germany, where 56% oppose such deployments, according to The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, French support for sending troops to Ukraine hinges on a formal peace accord, and most Britons favor peacekeeping, but not direct conflict, according to The Wall Street Journal.
2. Russia is demanding Ukraine cede all of Donbas in the east, but would be willing to freeze the conflict in the south along current front lines, Turkey’s top diplomat Hakan Fidan said in an interview with TGRT Haber on Aug. 28. At peace talks in Istanbul earlier this year, Russia’s negotiators demanded Ukraine pull out of not only the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, which comprise the Donbas, but also from the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts² entirely as a precondition to ending the conflict, according to AFP. However, during the latest, third round of negotiations in Istanbul on Aug. 23, the Russian and Ukrainian parties presented concrete positions for the first time, according to Fidan as reported by RBC.ua. These positions were then brought up for discussion during the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and following this summit, Moscow scaled back its demands, Fidan claimed. “That was when we saw the beginning of the end,” Fidan said, according to Korrespondent.net. Fidan acknowledged it would be difficult for Ukraine to give up its territory, including heavily fortified terrain in the east that could leave Ukraine vulnerable, according to AFP.³ Interestingly, responding to Fidan’s revelations, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov did not explicitly reject them, but called for negotiations to be discreet. Such a reaction could be interpreted as a confirmation of Fidan’s claims.*
3. Trump has privately fumed in recent days that his high-profile attempts at Ukraine diplomacy have yielded nothing, one senior administration official and one former official who stays in close touch with the White House told The Atlantic. Trump has also directed some frustration at Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, believing that they are being unrealistic in their demands and need to accept that Ukraine has to lose some territory to end the conflict, the current and ex-officials told the magazine. “He just wants this over,” the senior official told the Atlantic. “It almost doesn’t matter how.”
4. In the period of July 29–Aug. 26, Russian forces gained 180 square miles of Ukrainian territory, which marks a 24% decrease from the 237 square miles these forces gained in the period of July 22–Aug. 19, 2025. Comparing shorter periods, such as the past week to the preceding week, shows that in the period of Aug. 19–26, Russia gained 48 square miles of Ukrainian territory (roughly two Manhattan islands), which marks a 92% increase from the 25 square miles Russian forces gained in the period of Aug. 12–19, according to the Aug. 27, 2025, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. This week saw Russian troops capture two villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time, according to The New York Times and DeepState.  
5. A Russian attack on Kyiv overnight on Aug. 27–28 caused what Ukrainian media described as record damage across the Ukrainian capital, leaving at least 23 dead and affecting 33 locations with nearly 100 buildings damaged. Zelensky said the strike was the second-largest attack since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, Reuters reported. “We have an anti-record—damage in all districts of the city,” head of the Kyiv City Military Administration Tymur Tkachenko told media. During the attack, Russian forces launched 629 drones and missiles against Ukraine. Ukrainian air defense and electronic warfare units managed to destroy or suppress 589 targets—including 563 drones and 26 missiles. Nonetheless, two of the missiles struck within 50 meters of the EU mission, according to The Washington Post, Financial Times, Euronews, RBC.ua and Korrespondent.net.
6. With a nod from the White House, U.S. and Russian officials have recently discussed potential energy deals, including Exxon Mobil’s return to the Sakhalin-1 project and U.S. purchases of Russian LNG and nuclear icebreakers, according to The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Meanwhile, Russian fertilizer giant Acron increased U.S. sales by 1.7 times to $380 million in early 2025, making the U.S. its fastest-growing market, according to Kommersant. These developments, alongside ongoing U.S. imports of Russian HEU, raise questions about Washington’s efforts to justify secondary sanctions on Russian trade. Despite these questions, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said this week that India needs to stops buying Russian oil if it wants newly-enacted U.S. tariffs on Indian imports to drop from 50% back to 25%. Data by the U.S. Census bureau shows that U.S.-Russian trade in January-June 2025 totaled $ 2,780 million compared to $ 2,117.5 million in the same period last year, rising by 31.3%.