Russia Matters, 9/15/25

1. On Sept. 6–7, 2025, Russia launched its largest aerial assault of the war against Ukraine, firing between 805 and 823 projectiles—including over 800 Shahed drones and up to 13 missiles—across the country. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted at least 747 drones and several cruise missiles, marking their highest recorded single-night shootdown. Despite the significant interception rate, strikes caused up to five deaths, destroying residential buildings and, for the first time, damaged Kyiv’s Cabinet of Ministers. A Russian Iskander ballistic missile was confirmed in the Kyiv attack. Russia’s Defense Ministry denied striking civilian targets, despite mounting evidence.
2. In the period of Aug. 12–Sept. 9, Russian forces gained 160 square miles of Ukrainian territory, which marks a 34% decrease from the 241 square miles these forces gained in the period of July 15–Aug. 12, 2025, according to the Sept. 10, 2025, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. As of Sept. 9, 2025, Russian forces occupied 44,943 square miles of Ukrainian territory, which constitutes 19% of Ukraine’s territory (an area roughly equivalent to the U.S. state of Ohio), according to the card.  Russian forces have also reduced the rate of casualties they suffer while advancing by 31%, according to ISW’s analysis of the Ukrainian General Staff’s estimates. The rate went from 99 casualties per square kilometer gained from January through April 2025 to 68 casualties per kilometer gained from May through August 2025. Russia has also seen its losses of tanks decline recently. Oryx estimates that the past summer saw Russia lose 83 tanks in Ukraine, down from 252–274 tanks in the same periods of 2022–2024.

***

For Putin, bargaining and bombing aren’t mutually exclusive

By Jennifer Kavanagh, Responsible Statecraft, 9/9/25

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Russia launched its largest air attack on Ukraine to date, including over 800 drones and 13 ballistic missiles. Cities across the country came under fire, and a government building in Kyiv was damaged.

Officials in Europe and the United States were quick to condemn the attacks as evidence that Vladimir Putin is not serious about ending Russia’s nearly four-year conflict with Ukraine. They are right. Putin is not yet ready to stop fighting. And why would he be? After all, his army has the upper hand on the battlefield while Ukraine struggles with manpower shortages and materiel deficiencies.

Putin may, however, be ready to start bargaining over what the end to the war might look like, and signaled as much at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in China. “It seems to me that if common sense prevails, it will be possible to agree on an acceptable solution to end this conflict,” he told reporters in Beijing.

Let’s hope that U.S. President Donald Trump is paying attention. Though his face-to-face with Putin in Alaska failed to achieve the desired results, Trump can still jumpstart flagging efforts to end the war in Ukraine. But to do so, he will need to ignore voices calling for more sanctions or military pressure to be put on Russia.

Instead, he should double down on diplomacy by initiating serious working level discussions between Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv that can begin to hash out the terms of a settlement. This move may be unpopular, but real negotiations have to start sometime, and waiting won’t make peace easier to reach.

Each year since it began, Putin has spoken about the war in Ukraine at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a multilateral group that includes China, Russia, and India among other states. His remarks have typically emphasized three main themes. First, he has countered the narrative that Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, blaming the United States and Europe for meddling in Ukraine’s elections and pushing NATO’s boundaries closer to Russia’s borders.

Second, he has criticized the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West. Finally, he has thanked fellow SCO members for their support and efforts to work toward peace.

This year seemed different. Though his prepared remarks reiterated well-worn criticisms of NATO expansion and appreciation for Russia’s partners, in sideline conversations and answers to press questions he went further, expressing optimism about the war’s trajectory, observing that there might be a “light at the end of the tunnel,” and discussing Russia’s conditions for peace — those that are non-negotiable and those where some compromise might be reached.

There are clear limits to what Putin will agree to. Yet the positions Putin has outlined recently — in China, Alaska, and in-between — are not quite as maximalist as they were a year ago. There appears to be some bargaining space on key issues that could pave a pathway to peace if the Trump administration plays its cards right.

For example, while in China, Putin made clear once again that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is a redline for Russia, but also confirmed that Moscow does not object to Ukraine’s entrance into the EU (of course, only other EU member states can offer Kyiv membership in the economic and political union).

Putin also seemed open to discussing some kind of security guarantee for Ukraine, though it was unclear what this would entail. Putin may still be focused on the model proposed in Istanbul in which a group of countries including Russia, would guarantee Ukraine’s security. This is a non-starter for Kyiv, just as Putin is likely to veto Europe’s “reassurance force” plan.

But it’s possible that in the context of serious negotiations Putin might be open to other security arrangements for Ukraine, for example some types of Western military assistance during peacetime, Ukraine’s long-term defense industrial cooperation with Europe, or promises of additional U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing in case Russia attacks Ukraine again. Elsewhere, Moscow has signaled some flexibility on Russia’s “demilitarization” demand suggesting it would not object to a defensively armed Ukrainian military force.

Putin appears somewhat less willing to give ground on territory. Still, he noted in China that Russia would be willing to work with the United States (or even Ukraine) to oversee the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. He continues to seek full control of Donetsk but appears satisfied freezing the lines of contact in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Europe and Ukraine may not like Putin’s opening bid, but ignoring what flexibility has emerged in Russia’s terms in recent months risks missing a real chance for peace. Putin’s seeming escalation in the skies over Ukraine and his willingness to begin serious negotiations are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if he is serious about talking, eeking out whatever military gains he can now would be a rational way to increase bargaining leverage.

In any case, delaying diplomacy and continuing to struggle on the battlefield until Putin puts down his weapons is likely to make things worse, not better, for Ukraine. The most favorable settlement available to Ukraine was the one it might have negotiated in April 2022 or November 2022. With its military currently on the ropes, the next best option is the one negotiated today. If Putin is indeed open to talking, even if just at the working level and if fighting continues at the same time, it is in Ukraine’s best interest to get on board.

Ultimately, it is Kyiv and Moscow who must reach an agreement but in addition to eschewing new sanctions and other futile tactics to force Putin into a ceasefire, the Trump administration can help push things along in three ways.

First, Washington can serve as convener, bringing teams from Moscow and Kyiv together and facilitating private dialogue between the two sides. In this role, Trump will have to avoid the temptation to insert himself directly while the necessarily slow process plays out. After all, Kyiv and Moscow have shown that given time and space they can reach a mutually agreeable endpoint. They almost succeeded in Istanbul in 2022 and can do so again.

Second, the United States can help bridge the demands made by each side, offering Ukraine carrots to make concessions easier and Russia incentives to reduce the demands on Ukraine. For example, promising Ukraine time-limited military assistance after a settlement or building strategic stockpiles of air defense and other munitions that Kyiv would receive in the event of renewed war would be sustainable ways to reassure Ukraine of its future security without compromising U.S. interests.

In the case of Russia, the Trump administration might offer to open discussions about the U.S. role in Europe’s long-term security architecture in return for more flexibility from Moscow on Ukraine’s own military capabilities. The Trump administration has already signaled an interest in pulling back from its role in Europe, so reductions in U.S. commitments on NATO’s eastern flank could be a win-win — achieving an administration priority while addressing Putin’s “root causes.” The promise of sanctions relief or other types of bilateral cooperation might also convince Russia to lessen what it requests from Ukraine.

Finally, the Trump administration can regulate European involvement in negotiations, acting as a buffer against what has been the continent’s unhelpful interference. So far, European leaders have encouraged Zelensky to stick to unreasonable goals, set unrealistic expectations, and criticized what progress has occurred. The latest “reassurance force” charade is more of the same, an exercise in fantasy that extends the war rather than ending it.

The United States continues to have significant leverage over Europe, and the Trump administration should not be afraid to use it to keep Brussels from scuttling future diplomacy. Trump should communicate to his European counterparts that meddling in ongoing talks is unwelcome and will come with consequences for the transatlantic relationship. At the same time, he can engage with Europe at a later point on how they can support Ukraine after an agreement is reached.

With his military forces advancing on the battlefield, Putin is unlikely to stop fighting in the immediate term. Still, he seems ready to at least think about the end of the war and to talk about the terms of a settlement. If Trump is serious about achieving peace, he shouldn’t let this window of opportunity pass.

Dr. Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities. Previously, Dr. Kavanagh was a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. She is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

By Scott Horton & John Weeks, Antiwar.com, 9/1/25

On February 19, 2021, almost exactly one year before Russia would invade Ukraine, President Joe Biden addressed the Virtual Munich Security Conference. He said:

“We’re at an inflection point between those who argue that, given all the challenges we face — from the fourth industrial revolution to a global pandemic — that autocracy is the best way forward, they argue, and those who understand that democracy is essential — essential to meeting those challenges.”

The struggle between democracy and autocracy became a central theme and talking point of the administration, with Biden repeatedly extolling the United States as the “arsenal of democracy.”

On February 24, 2022, when Russia escalated its conflict with Ukraine (which began in 2014) by rolling more than 100,000 troops into the country, their president, Vladimir Putin, said:

“The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.”

Now, after more than three years of war, during which time DC has backed Ukraine with hundreds of billions of dollars, sophisticated weapons, intelligence sharing, targeting assistance and a parallel economic war on Russia, and Russia has inflicted hundreds of thousands Ukrainian casualties, an autocratic Nazi is poised to become the next president (or fascist dictator) of Ukraine.

Andriy Biletsky was imprisoned in a Ukrainian jail as the “Revolution of Dignity” (aka the Western-backed Maidan Coup) played out on the streets of Kiev in late 2013 and early 2014.

Biletsky, a partisan of “Social Nationalism” and “all the ancient Ukrainian Aryan values,” was accused of participating in a terrorist plot to blow up a statue of Vladimir Lenin in Boryspil.

On February 21, 2014, Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych fled the country, on February 22 his government collapsed and on February 24 a new coup-interim junta was created under Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. One of the new government’s first actions, that very day, was to pardon what it called “political prisoners” held by the deposed regime. On February 25, 2014, Biletsky walked out of prison and inherited the coup.

Biletsky founded the Azov Battalion out of his Patriot of Ukraine gang and fellow travelers from Right Sector, the coalition Nazi militia that had accomplished the street putsch weeks before, and quickly established himself as a man willing to lead men into battle against any and all perceived enemies, including Ukrainian civilians. Such enemy civilians immediately presented themselves in Ukraine’s east and south. Anti-coup protestors refused to recognize the new regime’s legitimacy and attempted to assert greater sovereignty for their regions. In response, and on orders from the United States, Kiev launched an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” against the Donbas. Many regular Ukrainian soldiers refused to wage war on their countrymen, with some even defecting to the rebels’ side. Biletsky and Azov, however, plunged into the close quarters, urban combat with alacrity.

Known as “White Leader” or “White Chief” by his men, Biletsky has become the Empire’s new version of a “moderate rebel,” an anti-democratic, Nazi warlord who DC is desperate to spin as a freedom fighter committed to Western values. All the hype in the world cannot change the reality on the ground revealed by his rhetoric and behavior.

In 2007, Biletsky was the leader of Patriot of Ukraine, a direct heir of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which was the “institutional epicenter” of Ukrainian collusion with the Nazis during World War II. He gave a speech entitled “Ukrainian Racial Social Nationalism.” In the speech Biletsky declared:

“The historical mission of our Nation, in this turning point, [is to lead] the White peoples of the whole world into the last crusade for its existence against the Semitic-led untermenschen.”

He argued that Ukrainian nation must become “a single biological organism that will consist of New People – physically, intellectually and spiritually developed persons. From the mass of individuals should appear Nation, and from the weak modern man – the Superman. Social-Nationalism relies on a number of fundamental principles that clearly distinguish it from other right-wing movements. This is a kind of triad: sociality, Racial, Great power.”

This kind of rhetoric could get an American citizen put in time out on X, or a Western European time in the penitentiary, but Biletsky has become a darling of Western governments and weapons manufacturers. He recruits young militants, neo-Nazis and men of the very-far right from across Europe. He baptized his new battalion with fire and blood in the eastern city of Mariupol, killing dissidents and seizing the city from pro-Russian forces in June 2014. In August, 2014, Biletsky was promoted to lieutenant colonel of police. In September, Azov was made an official regiment of the National Guard and Biletsky was promoted to commander.

Ten years later and Azov currently has two sections, the “The 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov” within the National Guard and “The Third Army Corps,” which Biletsky leads. The Third Army Corps has seen extensive combat and is responsible for holding down approximately 10 percent of the frontline. Biletsky, Grégory Priolon writes for Intelligence Online, “now appears in Azov’s communications without official uniform or insignia, but with a visual consistency that establishes his role: that of a warlord turned symbol.”

Judging by recent attempts to rehabilitate this Nazi and his friends in the London Times, and other outlets, it is clear that Biletsky has political ambitions beyond military service after the war.

Azov has embraced the role of ideological actor and political force within Ukrainian society. Given its popularity and its killing power, it probably has two options to take control of the central government: elections or a bloody coup.

Regardless of whether Ukraine’s war with Russia ends soon or grinds on, having a Nazi ascend to power in Ukraine would be humiliating (and possibly dangerous) for America and absolutely intolerable for Russia. It could provoke them to restart or expand the war to conquer or simply crush the entire nation. As is typical of government, DC and Moscow’s interventions have created massive problems that will in time be invoked to justify more interventions for years to come.

On the other hand, the other day some assassin just ran up on Biletsky’s Svoboda Party counterpart Andriy Parubiy and put the dirty s.o.b. right out of his misery.

Sometimes these things do have a way of taking care of themselves.

I was on vacation last week and am now battling the flu, so I’m gradually trying to get caught up on the news. – Natylie

Russia Matters, 9/12/25

1. NATO fighter jets have shot down Russian drones over Polish airspace for the first time, after what Warsaw described as an “unprecedented violation” of its territory, which prompted the alliance to hold emergency consultations per the NATO treaty’s Article 4. The intrusion exposed what some Western officials and analysts described as serious gaps in NATO’s eastern air defenses, with alliance jets downing only four of the estimated 19–23 drones.¹ Western analysts, such as former SACEUR Ben Hodges, believe the attack was a deliberate rehearsal to test NATO’s systems.² If Vladimir Putin’s intention was, indeed, to test NATO’s air defenses, the Russian president “would be most pleased with the result,” according to Financial Times. Test or not, the incident brought Europe “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II,” according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Donald Trump suggested the incursion “could have been a mistake,” but Tusk dismissed this³ while Polish President Karol Nawrocki called the incident “an unprecedented moment in the history of NATO and Poland.”⁴ While Russian warplanes have long tested NATO’s responses by flying near or even into the airspace of alliance members, forcing them to scramble jets, the Sept. 10 incident was the first time the U.S.-led bloc has engaged directly with the Russian armed forces since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to WSJ. By contrast, Russia’s Defense Ministry played down the incident, insisting its drones did not intentionally cross into Poland and claiming that electronic jamming caused the breach. If Belarus’s Defense Ministry is truthful in its claim that it “warned” Poland about “unknown aerial vehicles” approaching their borders, then it raises questions about the ability of the leader of NATO’s eastern flank,⁵ which Poland is, to cope with a hypothetical air war with Russia on its own.⁶
2. On Sept. 6–7, 2025, Russia launched its largest aerial assault of the war against Ukraine, firing between 805 and 823 projectiles—including over 800 Shahed drones and up to 13 missiles—across the country. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted at least 747 drones and several cruise missiles, marking their highest recorded single-night shootdown. Despite the significant interception rate, strikes caused up to five deaths, destroying residential buildings and, for the first time, damaged Kyiv’s Cabinet of Ministers. A Russian Iskander ballistic missile was confirmed in the Kyiv attack. Russia’s Defense Ministry denied striking civilian targets, despite mounting evidence.
3. In the period of Aug. 12–Sept. 9, Russian forces gained 160 square miles of Ukrainian territory, which marks a 34% decrease from the 241 square miles these forces gained in the period of July 15–Aug. 12, 2025, according to the Sept. 10, 2025, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. As of Sept. 9, 2025, Russian forces occupied 44,943 square miles of Ukrainian territory, which constitutes 19% of Ukraine’s territory (an area roughly equivalent to the U.S. state of Ohio), according to the card.  Russian forces have also reduced the rate of casualties they suffer while advancing by 31%, according to ISW’s analysis of the Ukrainian General Staff’s estimates. The rate went from 99 casualties per square kilometer gained from January through April 2025 to 68 casualties per kilometer gained from May through August 2025. Russia has also seen its losses of tanks decline recently. Oryx estimates that the past summer saw Russia lose 83 tanks in Ukraine, down from 252–274 tanks in the same periods of 2022–2024.

***

Russian drones over Poland no reason to panic and start a war

By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 9/10/25

It seems unlikely that the handful of Russian drones that entered Polish air space did so accidentally.

There have been previous incidents, but they involved individual drones very close to the Ukrainian border. Yesterday there were over a dozen, according to reports, with debris landing in several cities, including hitting one house, after NATO was scrambled to shoot them down.

It is appropriate therefore that under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty, NATO members consulted over this and responded.

This was however not an “attack.” None of the drones hit a significant target, or seem to have been intended to do so. The Russian move was most likely intended as a warning to the European “coalition of the willing” to abandon its hopes of establishing a “reassurance force” in Ukraine, and add weight to President Putin’s statement that such a force would automatically be subject to Russian attack.

It was probably also a warning to the U.S. not to provide air cover or a “backstop” for such a force.

We should remember that during the Cold War, there were a number of far more serious violations of air space by both sides, some of them leading to NATO planes being shot down and American and British airmen killed. These incidents led not to threats of war, but careful attempts to de-escalate tensions and develop ways to avoid such clashes.

There are two ways of looking at this, and they are not mutually exclusive. On the one hand, it was undoubtedly a provocative act by Russia, which has provided the opportunity for more hysterical outbursts by Western hawks about alleged Russian plans to attack NATO, more calls for increased aid to Ukraine, and more allegations that “Russia does not want peace” (it does, but — just like Ukraine — on terms that meet its basic conditions).

On the other hand, the immediate European response is a reminder of the extent of European (though not Polish) military weakness, and that any European force in Ukraine would be utterly dependent on US support and guarantees.

Thus while the British defense secretary John Healey responded by warning of a “new era of threat” and promising to defend Poland, he also revealed that Britain has only 300 troops in Poland; its previous contingent of precisely six Typhoon fighter jets were withdrawn in July, and its Sky Sabre air defense system in Poland was removed last year for maintenance and has not yet returned.

So when Healey told the “E5” group (the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland) that he had asked the British armed forces “to look at options to bolster NATO’s air defence over Poland,” those options would seem extremely limited, and would also probably require reducing military supplies to Ukraine.

Amidst wild ravings from Poland and some British commentators (including calls for an “Article 5 response” – i.e. war), former NATO Deputy Commander General Sir Adrian Bradshaw struck a sensible note, which the U.S. and European governments would do well to follow:

“The point of the consultations is to do things which lower the tension and lower the potential for a slide into conflict, which none of us want. And it’s reasonable to assume that even Mr. Putin doesn’t want a conflict between the whole of NATO and Russia, because it would be disastrous for all of us. So we need to bear that in mind, but be seen to act with resolve…[I]f we don’t want to escalate in the military domain, then we must do so in the economic, political and diplomatic domains.”

***

The Reported Russian Drone Incursions Into Poland Might Have Been Due To NATO Jamming

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 9/11/25

It’s unlikely that Russia would risk rallying the West around a no-fly zone over Ukraine by staging a deliberate provocation against Poland or even just carrying out a recon mission in NATO airspace.

Poland claimed to have shot down several Russian drones on Wednesday morning that reportedly crossed into its airspace during the latest large-scale strikes against Ukraine. This occurred amidst the ongoing Polish, Lithuanian, and NATO drills involving 30,000 Polish troops and just ahead of the upcoming Russian-Belarusian Zapad 2025 drills. Some therefore suspect that this was either a deliberate provocation by Russia or a botched recon mission, but it might have just been due to NATO jamming.

It was recently argued that “There Might Be More To The Von Der Leyen-GPS-Russia Hoax Than Scoring Cheap Infowar Points” after the dramatic claim that Russia supposedly jammed her plane while it attempted to land in Bulgaria was debunked by Sofia itself and Western media. The alternative theory put forth was that this false narrative was meant to justify aggressive signals jamming in Kaliningrad, though this could also be directed towards Belarus given its hosting of the upcoming Zapad 2025 drills.

Such interference might have thus caused Russian drones to veer off course into Poland during the latest large-scale strikes against Ukraine. Aggressive signals jamming could also precede implementation of reported plans for imposing a no-fly zone over at least part of Ukraine in connection with the West’s security guarantees for that country. Although nowhere as foolproof as patrols over Ukrainian airspace and authorizing NATO-based Patriots to protect its skies, it would carry much less of an escalation risk.

Moreover, if NATO expected that its speculative signals jamming – possibly ramped up after the von der Leyen-GPS-Russia hoax, which might have been timed to coincide with the upcoming Zapad 2025 drills – would cause Russian drones to veer off course, then this might be part of a preplanned escalation. The objective could be to rally support for the abovementioned no-fly zone proposal or even begin the gradual process of implementing it on the pretext of “proactive defense” in light of this incident.

Over 3,5 years into the special operation, Russia would have by now presumably gamed out everything that could realistically follow the scenario of several of its drones crossing into Poland, with policymakers thus likely being aware that this could be exploited to advance the no-fly zone plot. The aforesaid insight accordingly reduces the odds that this was a deliberate provocation or a botched recon mission, either of which would have probably been carried out in force to make the cost-benefit tradeoff more worthwhile.

This is a similar logic as what was recently shared in this analysis here arguing that Russia probably didn’t deliberately target the Cabinet of Ministers building in Kiev so as to avoid fueling the no-fly zone plot. While that particular incident might have been randomly caused by drone debris, the latest one could have been planned to a much greater degree if NATO jamming was indeed responsible as conjectured. It remains to be seen, however, whether Poland will participate in any no-fly zone over Ukraine as a result.

Former President Andrzej Duda recently revealed that Zelensky tried to manipulate Poland into war with Russia over November 2022’s Przewodow incident, which he refused to fall for, while his successor Karol Nawrocki pledged ahead of the second round not to deploy troops to Ukraine. This policy continuity, which aligns with Poles getting fed up with Ukrainian refugees and this neighboring conflict, could foil NATO’s plans to manipulate Poland into this even though it might still agree to ramp up signals jamming.

Link to YouTube video here.

from Geoffrey Roberts:

When Stalin told a delegation from the Finland-USSR society that he proposed to give Finland more time to pay its reparations to the Soviet Union, the Finns said that would be generous.

Stalin replied:

“It’s calculation, not generosity – a generosity of calculation. When we treat others well, they are nice to us. Our generosity makes up for the policy of Tsarist autocracy. Its policy towards Finland, Romania and Bulgaria made their peoples enemies of Russia. We want neighbouring countries and peoples to have a good attitude towards us.”

“Это не великодушие, а расчет, великодушие по расчету. Когда мы к другому хорошо относимся, и они к нам хорошо относятся…Своим великодушием мы рассчитываемся за политику царского самодержавия. Царское самодержавие своей политикой по отношению к Финляндии, Румынии, Болгарии вызвало вражду народов этих стран к России. Мы хотим, чтобы соседние страны и народы к нам хорошо относились”.

Reference courtesy Vladimir Pechatnov.

Geoffrey Roberts

Member of the Royal Irish Academy

Emeritus Professor of History, University College Cork

www.geoffreyroberts.net