By Brian McDonald, Substack, 8/24/25

You may not know of Yevgeny Primakov. But he really should be a household name: because his shadow still tilts across the table whenever the Kremlin weighs its hand. To make sense of the way Russia now speaks, you have to look back to the man who first inscribed those habits into the bones of its statecraft during the devastating 1990s.

The current talks with the United States won’t lead to Obama-era resets or Reagan-esque grand bargains. What Moscow wants is simpler: a) time, b) leverage, and c) a spread of options. It’s a style of diplomacy Primakov would have recognised instantly.

Back in the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin was raising toasts in Washington and ending his address to the US Congress with “God bless America,” Primakov kept his distance. A trained Arabist, journalist and intelligence man who rose to become foreign minister and then prime minister, he had spent too long in Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus to buy into the mood music of “partnership.”

He grasped, far quicker than most of his peers, what the so-called post-Cold War order really had in store for Russia. Essentially it boiled down to servitude with a smile: a junior chair at the grand table, with a polite grin for the cameras and a signature scrawled on whatever demands the West thought fit to slide across. His answer was to repurpose Karl Deutsch and J. David Singer’s 1960s concept of multipolarity: better to court many princes than bend the knee to one.

At the heart of his politics lay a set of instincts honed by hard experience: never get boxed into someone else’s binaries and guard sovereignty the way a poor man guards his last coin. You should reach out, yes, and build ties with any power that offers the chance, but don’t ever shackle yourself. And as for ideology; use it if you must, but never repeat the Soviet mistake of letting it dictate everything. For Primakov, the only philosophy worth carrying was the blunt survival of the national interest.

His name reached Western headlines in March 1999. On his way to Washington as prime minister, he learned that NATO had begun bombing Serbia and responded by ordering his plane to turn around mid-Atlantic and fly back to Moscow. The gesture announced that the gig was up and Russia wouldn’t be nodding along politely as the West dismantled Yugoslavia. For many Russians, it was the first sign in a decade of collapse that at least one of their leaders still had a spine. However, in a host of Western capitals, it was the moment Primakov was marked as a spoiler.

That same year, he was briefly spoken of as Yeltsin’s possible successor. Many in a Russia battered by economic collapse and humiliated abroad seemed to yearn for his steadiness and dignity. Yet his political star dimmed quickly, outmanoeuvred by the oligarchic Kremlin clan that would ultimately place the much younger Vladimir Putin in power.

Primakov never wore the crown of the presidency, but his way of seeing the world seeped into the bloodstream of the man who did. Putin came out of the shadows at the millennium with the instincts of a security official rather than a statesman. It was Primakov’s frame that gave those instincts shape and turned watchman’s reflexes into a doctrine of state.

Of course, the critics keep their ledger handy. They point at the 1998 financial crash on his watch as prime minister, and say he was no wizard of economics. They recall his unbending hand in Chechnya. Both fair charges, maybe. But whenever the talk turns to foreign policy, the tone completely changes. Here the clarity still lingers because he saw with cruel precision that Russia could never be folded into a Western-centred order without shrinking itself to fit. As a result, he sketched an alternative.

You can still trace his hand in Moscow’s conduct. Talks with Washington are stripped of both the begging bowl and the sabre-rattle. What you find instead is a patience that borders on the obstinate; we can call it strategic waiting. The bet is simple: unpopular governments in Paris, Berlin and London (just look at current polls) will fall with the seasons, but Putin’s Russia will outlast them. In the meantime it probes at the seams of Western unity, leaving a door ajar for any thaw that might drift in with a change of weather.

Even the scaffolding of BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation shows Primakov’s imprint. These aren’t anti-Western clubs so much as post-Western stages; built to shrink the US-led bloc from lead actor to one among many in a larger cast.

This sets him apart from other Russian visionaries. Vladislav Surkov’s notion of a “Great North,” uniting Russia with Western Europe, collapsed almost as soon as it was uttered. Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Common European Home” dissolved into smoke. Primakov had seen the futility long before. He never believed Russia could be integrated into Western structures on anything other than subservient terms.

So the moves you see out of Moscow today are part of a strategy long-aged, like spirits resting in a dark barrel and waiting for the moment to be poured. In essence, Russia won’t barter away its red lines in Eastern Europe for a scrap of sanctions relief. Nor will it march dutifully in the slipstream of a US–China collision. Instead, it will manoeuvre always under its own steam.

Primakov was born in Kiev in 1929, grew up in Tbilisi, and was educated in Moscow. As mentioned at the outset, he worked as a reporter and analyst of the Arab world before becoming a trusted envoy, then rose to head the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service. Yeltsin made him chief diplomat in 1996 and prime minister in 1998. He died in 2015 at the age of 85, honoured with a state funeral. Both Putin and Dmitry Medvedev paid tribute to him as a man who had kept Russia’s dignity intact in its hardest modern decade.

Once upon a time, he was whispered about as Yeltsin’s natural heir. However, in the end, his fate was not to rule, but to leave his doctrine behind; to shape Russia’s course long after his physical life had come to an end. That, ultimately, is Primakov’s bequest: it’s why the men in Washington no longer face the pliant Russia of the 1990s, but a state seasoned by the humiliation of those years. Once burned, it now carries the scars. And this time, whatever else happens, it will not come cap in hand.

Euronews, 9/5/25

Moscow will consider any foreign troop deployment on Ukrainian soil as “legitimate targets for destruction”, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

“If any troops appear there, especially now, during the fighting, we assume that they will be legitimate targets for destruction,” Putin emphasised in his keynote speech at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

“And if decisions are reached that will lead to peace, to long-term peace, then I simply see no point in their presence on Ukrainian territory.”

“If these agreements are reached, no one doubts that Russia will implement them in full.”

Putin’s comments came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accompanied by his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, shared on Thursday that 26 European states, part of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, were prepared to offer security guarantees to Ukraine in a post-war capacity following any potential peace settlement.

Ukraine’s European partners have not suggested sending combat troops to Ukraine during the ongoing war, but instead deploying a type of international peacekeepers only after a possible ceasefire or a peace deal. 

These forces would not engage in fighting but would only be tasked with monitoring and maintaining peace after the agreement is reached. 

The Russian president voiced doubts about this possibility, though, saying it will be “practically impossible” to reach an agreement on key issues with Ukraine to end the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, currently in its fourth year.

Putin also said that Russia wants to get security guarantees as well, without specifying what these measures could be and how they would protect Russia in its all-out war against Ukraine.  

“Peace guarantees must be for both, Russia and Ukraine,” stressed Putin.

Putin reiterated Moscow’s resolute rejection of Ukrainian membership in the NATO defence alliance. At the same time, the Kremlin is not opposed to Ukraine’s desire to join the European Union, according to him.

He claimed that “Ukraine’s decision on NATO cannot be considered without looking at Russia’s (security) interests”, but Kyiv’s EU aspirations are a “legitimate choice”.

“I repeat, (Ukraine’s EU bid) is Ukraine’s legitimate choice, how to build its international relations, how to ensure its interests in the economic sphere, with whom to enter into alliances.”

The Cradle, 9/15/25

On 15 September, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called on NATO countries to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine following a reported Russian drone incursion into Poland last week.

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeiner newspaper, Sikorski stated that Warsaw would need the support of other European allies to implement the plan.

“We as NATO and the EU could be capable of doing this, but it is not a decision that Poland can make alone; it can only be made with its allies,” he said.

“Protection for our population — for example, from falling debris — would naturally be greater if we could combat drones and other flying objects beyond our national territory … If Ukraine were to ask us to shoot them down over its territory, that would be advantageous for us. If you ask me personally, we should consider it,” he added.

Last week, multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland, prompting NATO to scramble fighter jets to shoot them down.

Russia said it did not target Poland. Belarus, Russia’s ally, said the drones entered Polish airspace by accident after they were jammed.

European leaders claim the drone incursions are a deliberate provocation by Russia.

Following the incursion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged his allies to build a “joint air defense system and create an effective air shield over Europe.”

The US and its partners in NATO have previously rejected requests by Ukraine for a no-fly zone, citing the risk of a direct military encounter with nuclear-armed Russia.

“The incident raised serious questions about the alliance’s readiness to counter the relatively cheap, highly maneuverable but devastatingly destructive unmanned aerial vehicles that have redefined modern warfare since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” the Washington Post wrote on Monday.

Officials in Warsaw said that Russian drones had penetrated Polish airspace 19 times, most likely as decoys to distract air defenses.

On Saturday, Romania scrambled fighter jets after a Russian drone breached its airspace during an attack on neighboring Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that European nations are determined to block political and diplomatic efforts to end the war.

“NATO is de facto at war with Russia. This is obvious and needs no proof. NATO provides direct and indirect support to the Kyiv regime,” Peskov added.

To agree to a peace deal, Moscow has demanded that Kiev relinquish territory in eastern Ukraine now occupied by Russia. The Kremlin insists that limits be imposed on Ukraine’s military and assurances that Ukraine will not gain membership in NATO.

One former Ukrainian official told the Washington Post on 12 September that the Russian drone incursion into Poland could cause Europe to limit support for Ukraine, rather than expand it.

Air defense batteries and missiles are already in short supply, and European countries may feel they need to keep these items for their own defense, rather than transfer them to Ukraine.

The former official said the first thought as drones entered Polish airspace was, “They will not even give us what they already promised.”

Russian drone and missile attacks have not only increased in number in recent months, but they have also become more sophisticated.

Russia now launches swarms of several hundred drones at once, with some being armed and others serving as decoys. Some are equipped with jet engines to allow them to fly faster and follow ballistic missile trajectories.

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.