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By Andrew Day, The American Conservative, 8/12/25

Russian forces in recent days punched through Ukraine’s defensive line near its key stronghold Pokrovsk, a city in the eastern Donetsk province, according to news reports on Tuesday.

The breakthrough—Russia’s biggest in many months—comes ahead of a Friday summit in Alaska between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The timing suggests Moscow is pushing for battlefield gains to enhance its bargaining position in peace talks. Putin has demanded that Kiev cede the entire Donetsk province, including parts that Ukraine still controls.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Monday evening that Russia was “redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations.”

Russian troops now nearly surround Pokrovsk, which had served as a logistics hub for Ukrainian troops. Kiev may need to order a withdrawal from the semi-encircled swath of territory or risk exposing its forces there to capture or bombardment.

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Alaskan Waste

By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 8/13/25

Battlefield

Russian activity in Ukraine has been intense in the lead-up to Friday’s scheduled meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin in Alaska, centering most in and around Pokrovsk. Russian sabotage and reconnaissance forces are attacking the south of the city in what may be artillery preparation for a major offensive, and have already penetrated to its center.

To the immediate north of the city Russia has secured Sukhetske and is extending west towards Novooltksandrivka and Shevchenko, while further north still it is extending via Zatyshok and Zapovidne into Novo Shakove, Zolotyi Kolodiaz, Shakove and Kucheriv Yar.

From Pokrovsk, northwest to Novekonomichne, Russia is forming a cauldron centered on Balchan. To the west of Novekonomichne, Russia is battling to take Rodynske (it is reported to have secured 60% of the settlement), which lies to the south west of Fedorivke and Rezine) and battling southwards to Myrnohrad, close enough to the northeast of Pokrovsk to be considered a suburb.

Although Russia has reportedly taken 150-200 square kilometers in the past 24 to 48 hours, further westward advances from Pokrovsk may be awaiting the arrival of units of the main Russian army, particularly in view of unresolved issues that lie to the east of Pokrovsk, northeast of Maisk, around Volodymyrivka and Shakove, Toretske and Solivka – all lying southwest from another targetted settlement, Kostiantynivka (west of Chasiv Yar, now in Russian Hands).

A Ukrainian Azov-led counter-offensive is expected in this area starting from Ivanopillia (north of Russian-held Toretsk) towards Solivka and on down to Russian-held Fedorivka. Anticipating and heading off this move, Russian forces need to progress towards Toretske and Solivka but must first complete their struggle for Kucheriv Yar. Russian forces may also move up towards Solivka from Rusyn Yar.

Southwest of Pokrovsk, Russian forces have taken 60% of Udachne and are moving towards Novoserhaivka and Novomykolaivka in a possible bid to cut the M30 supply route to Pokrovsk.

Preparing to move on Kostiantynivka to the north east of Pokrovsk, Russian forces are attacking Plebsn Byk from Russisn-held Katerynivka. East of Kostiantynivka, Russia has taken full control of Stupechky and Pyredechyne.

Russian forces have taken the Southern Torkse Forest east of Lyman and are bombing Siversk.

Alaska

There is intense chatter as to the potential outcomes of Friday’s Presidential meeting. I maintain my judgment that the meeting is ill-advised, is dangerous as well as largely pointless for Putin to attend, and has been very poorly prepared. I note Larry Johnson’s coverage in his Sonar21 report yesterday of a story of a potential assassination plot, and although he himself is skeptical as to its veracity, it demonstrates the absurd ease with which potential assassins, professional or amateur, may disrupt the summit.

Trump’s anticipatory statements and positions veer wildly from day to day. Yesterday’s phone conversation between European leaders, Zelenskiy and Trump have confirmed that Europe supports Zelenskiy’s completely obstructionist mode that, in turn, will likely reduce the possibility of anything close to a meaningful concession from Trump to Putin, while Putin will find it extremely difficult to move away from his terms laid out in June 2024, perhaps only to the extent of offering to withdraw Russian troops from his ““buffer zone” in Kharkiv and Sumy in return for a concession from Ukraine – which seems very unlikely to be offered – to withdraw its troops from those parts of Kherson and Zapporizhzhia in which Ukraine still maintains a military presence (and which Russia is otherwise almost guaranteed to take in the very near future in any case).

Does Russia have good reasons to participate in this summit? One can think of reasons, but none of them are convincing. Perhaps Putin wants to prepare Trump for the post-conflict scenarios that may unfold if and when the Ukrainian army collapses and Russia moves to the Dnieper or even further west. Is Putin concerned to make sure that Russian territorial acquisitions will be internationally recognized? Perhaps. Trump recognizing them will not guarantee or even incentivize European or UN recognition. Does Putin want to talk about arms control? Fat chance he will find an enthusiastic listener in Trump who is in charge of the most aggressive military-industrial (MICIMATT) incubus the earth has ever seen and whose profits sustain the US corporate-plutocratic ruling tyranny and who would love to encourage a nice, deceptive Russian “pause” to its currently accelerating growth in military capability. Does Putin want to talk about joint exploitation in the Arctic? Then he should first be talking to his friends in the BRICS and to those allies who will be most central to the construction of BRICS-friendly south-north trading routes at the very same time as Trump is attempting to sabotage Russian and Chinese interests in west-east trading routes from the always malevolent influence of Turkey through the south Caucasus, with a view to disrupting Russian-Iranian transportation route and destabilizing Iran’s Azeri northwest.

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With Desertions, Low Recruitment, Ukraine’s Infantry Crisis Deepens

By Yauhen Lehalau, RFE/RL, 8/10/25

As Russia presses its offensive, Ukraine faces a crisis that experts say is as critical as its shortages of ammunition and weapons: a dwindling supply of infantry.

“Drivers, artillerymen, and cooks” are holding the line, says Bohdan Krotevich, an officer formerly with the Azov Brigade’s headquarters. “A maximum of 12 fighters hold sections 5-10 kilometers wide.”

The lack of manpower is allowing Russia to employ what Ukraine’s commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskiy, recently called “total infiltration” tactics. Small infantry groups make it through Ukrainian lines — including into Pokrovsk, the key city in the Donetsk region that is likely the main target of Russia’s current offensive.

One of the brigades responsible for defending the area had “run out of infantry,” according to Ukrainian conflict-monitoring group DeepState, allowing the Russians through. A video from July, geolocated to a gas station in the southern part of the city, shows a Ukrainian transport coming under fire from one of the infiltration groups, and other units had to be sent in to attempt to clear the area.

The Manpower Gap Flips In Russia’s Favor

Early in the war, the balance was radically different. In the lead-up to the full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia’s army had about 1 million troops, with some 150,000 – 190,000 concentrated along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus.

At the time, Ukraine’s military had some 260,000 in active service, but the country mobilized up to 700,000 men by mid-summer, handing it a manpower advantage over the invading Russian forces, who had by then been expelled from the Kyiv region. Russia was forced to conduct a “partial mobilization” of about 300,000 reservists to stabilize the front line after yielding thousands of square kilometers of territory in eastern Ukraine.

In 2023, Russian recruitment picked up, introducing thousands of prison inmates to the army as well as mercenary groups like the infamous Wagner private military company and offering significant sign-up bonuses to volunteers. Ukraine, on the other hand, was struggling to find new recruits to replace losses. As analysts from the investigative group, the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) observed, this was the year that momentum shifted in Moscow’s favor, as Russia’s recruitment drive neutralized Ukraine’s manpower advantage while Kyiv faced mounting difficulties replenishing its ranks.

In 2025, according to The Military Balance, an annual assessment of military capabilities worldwide, Russia’s numbers of active-duty personnel reached over 1.13 million — with Syrskiy claiming that some 640,000 of them were on Ukrainian territory, a figure echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. While Ukraine’s total troop strength is officially over 1 million, the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) says not more than 300,000 of them are deployed on the front lines.

Russia Recruiting More Than Ukraine

According to the OSW, Ukraine needs to recruit some 300,000 soldiers to replenish its brigades, some of which are only at 30 percent strength. Last year, it managed 200,000, a number that “proved insufficient to maintain unit strength at an adequate level” given “the scale of desertions and personnel losses,” the OSW report says. Currently, Ukraine is estimated to recruit 17,000 to 24,000 people per month, or between 204,000 and 288,000 per year.

While it has had to increase its sign-up bonuses, Russian recruitment is estimated to have increased to a rate of about 30,000 per month –- an advantage of roughly 70-150,000 per year.

Thousands AWOL

Beyond the gap in recruitment figures, Ukraine’s army has a desertion problem, with tens of thousands of instances of soldiers going Absent Without Leave (AWOL) recorded per year. According to popular Ukrainian war correspondent Yuri Butusov, the Anne of Kyiv brigade, trained in France, had up to 1,700 soldiers go AWOL between March and November 2024 — a staggering figure, given that Ukraine’s average brigade strength is between 4,000 and 5,000.

The founder of the Frontelligence Insight group says cases of forced mobilization, where Ukrainian men are taken off the street to a recruitment center, contributes to the desertion problem, with mobilized recruits often less motivated than those who volunteer. A Ukrainian commander told CNN that “the majority” of these recruits leave their positions. “They go to the positions once and if they survive, they never return. They either leave their positions, refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army.”

Can Ukraine Close The Gap?

Ukraine has adopted several policies to address the recruitment and desertion issues. Soldiers who went AWOL have been allowed to avoid prosecution by voluntarily returning to their units. Tens of thousands have done so — although the numbers of those deserting are still higher.

Despite pressure from both the Trump and Biden administrations, Ukraine has so far resisted lowering its draft age to 18 — a move that would be deeply unpopular with the public. Ukrainian men aged 25 and above can be drafted after the age was lowered from 27 in April 2024. However, the military has begun offering monthly salaries of 120,000 hryvna (about $2,900) and other financial incentives to incentivize those aged between 18 and 24 to volunteer.

Presidential military adviser Pavlo Palysa said in April that the new program had drawn just 500 recruits in the first weeks since it was launched, and it’s unclear whether the figures have picked up since then.

While US President Donald Trump has recently threatened increased pressure on Moscow if a cease-fire deal is not agreed to soon, analysts haven’t seen a shift in the Kremlin’s policy yet. “I do not observe any substantive change in Russian tactics toward Trump or Ukraine,” Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said on X.

With no indication that Putin is willing to back down or accept a cease-fire along current lines — his forces have so far failed to take much of the four Ukrainian regions Russia officially claimed to have annexed in 2022 — Ukraine will need to deal with its manpower shortage to hold the line.

By Brian McDonald, Substack, 7/31/25

By any measure that matters, agriculture in southern Russia is in trouble. The sort that sinks in like cracked clay and doesn’t let go.

This summer, a brutal drought—the worst in decades—has scorched the Krasnodar and Rostov regions, an area long known as the grain heartland of Russia. The figures don’t lie. State of emergency declarations have now spread across 37 districts, with thousands of farms reporting yield collapses that are nothing short of catastrophic.

Wheat yields in the Kuban are down from 64.7 to 48.8 centners per hectare; barley is off 21%; peas and maize are also flagging—and sugar beet losses are still being counted.

According to Konstantin Yurov, deputy chairman of the People’s Farmer association, Krasnodar alone has lost 2.8 million tonnes of grain, translating to around ₽42 billion in damages. Rostov’s losses are expected to be similar. In total, Yurov told RBK, “Farmers in the Kuban and Don regions have missed out on 70–80 billion rubles.” That’s $855 to $978 million, gone with the heat.

And this is no local misfortune. This is Russia—the world’s largest grain exporter. Southern Russia produces up to 20% of its grain, most of it passing through Novorossiysk and Azov ports to markets stretching from Cairo to Jakarta. When the Kuban stumbles, bread prices don’t just shift in Kursk or Kazan—they spike in Lagos, Damascus, Amman.

We’ve seen this story before. In 2011, a surge in global food prices—driven in part by Dmitry Medvedev’s export restrictions following another severe drought—helped trigger unrest across the Arab world. Despite what some think tanks would try to have you believe, the Arab Spring wasn’t born in Twitter feeds. It was born in bakeries. When bread doubles in price and wages don’t, people don’t just complain. They revolt.

So when Russian officials from the Ministry of Agriculture now claim that the 2025 grain harvest will hit 135 million tonnes, surpassing last year by 5 million—even projecting 55 million tonnes for export—the optimism feels brittle, like a harvest forecast written in chalk on a dry stone wall.

The numbers from the ground tell another story. In some of the worst-hit districts—Kanevskoy, Pavlovsky, Yeysky—grain yields have plummeted to just 20–30 c/ha, two to three times lower than the usual regional average. Maize and sugar beet assessments aren’t even in yet. Livestock producers are already discussing cutting the cattle herd due to feed shortages.

Equipment loans. Fertilizer bills. Warehousing costs. They don’t take a year off because the skies didn’t cooperate. And they certainly don’t pause for the slow gears of Moscow’s subsidy machine. “In what happened, the farmers bear no blame,” says Vyacheslav Legkodukh, the governor’s representative for farmer relations in Krasnodar. “We must do everything possible to ensure these farms survive to next season.”

But survival in this new era can’t rely on last-century tools. Yes, subsidies, crop insurance, emergency lending—all of these help soften the blow. But none of them solve it. You don’t adapt to climate breakdown with forms and stamps.

What’s needed now is strategic resilience: new drought-tolerant crop strains; smart irrigation systems that can stretch a dry season; data-driven yield modelling that sees past the next quarterly target.

Russia’s grain heartland is shifting under its own boots, whether Moscow likes it or not. The Kuban and the Don—fields once fat with black earth—are drying out, while the better soil edges north toward Ryazan, Kursk, Tambov. Trouble is, up there you’ve got dirt but no silos, no rail spurs, no deep-water docks. Hard to ship a loaf out of a meadow.

The real peril isn’t only in the cracked furrows. It’s in the comforting lie that last year’s export crown guarantees this year’s. The sky doesn’t read ministry memos. Weather tears up contracts for fun. If the planners don’t move with it, they’ll end up— as every old farmer knows— betting the harvest on a cloud that never breaks.

And if that wager goes sour? Russia will still feed itself, just about. But the grain market’s strung tight as a fiddle string; miss one shipment out of Novorossiysk and bread jumps in Cairo, tempers boil in Khartoum. Wheat isn’t just food. It props up governments.

So what’s happening down south isn’t a local mishap. It’s front-line climate news. In this new game, soil is strategy and a sack of grain can tip a cabinet.

The breadbasket’s smouldering. Best notice before the wind changes.

By Uriel Araujo, InfoBrics, 7/31/25

In a somewhat striking (and underreported) reversal, the Trump administration has authorized Chevron to resume oil operations in Venezuela, granting a six-month license to extract and export crude to the United States. This comes just months after Trump had revoked the company’s license in February, citing electoral irregularities and failed promises on migrant repatriation. The decision thus marks a notable shift in Washington’s traditionally hostile posture toward Caracas.

US-Venezuela relations have indeed long been defined by sanctions, diplomatic standoffs, and ideological confrontations. Trump’s first term saw the recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaidó and a “maximum pressure” campaign that quite effectively strangled Venezuela’s oil output to some extent. Thus far, the Biden interregnum had offered only temporary respite, and Trump’s return to power brought back neo-Monroeist rhetoric to the Americas — complete with tariff (and even “annexation”) threats against Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, and, one may recall, even Canada.

Why, then, make an “exception”, so to speak, for Venezuela? Why is Chevron suddenly welcome back in Bolivarian territory, with Washington’s blessings?

Well, oil prices and domestic economic imperatives must be taken into consideration. As I noted, in July 2024, any escalation in the Iran-Israel conflict could send gas prices soaring, thereby undermining Trump’s economic credibility and crashing markets. That escalation, thus far, has not materialized — Iran’s retaliation to US strikes last month was restrained, and Tel Aviv has not pursued overt escalation after taking a heavy blow under Iranian missiles.

Yet even without a Middle Eastern full blow-up, oil remains a pressure point. After the February revocation of Chevron’s license, crude prices rose by nearly 2%. Inflation continues to hover above target, and any relief for US consumers and for “MAGA” — particularly heading into the 2026 midterms — is very welcome.

I’ve noted elsewhere how much the incumbent American President is dealing with domestic turmoil, while now also facing a political crisis amid the Epstein scandal; all of that further intertwines domestic and foreign policy.

In any case, Venezuela’s heavy crude is uniquely suited for US Gulf Coast refineries. Its output to Chevron alone may reach up to 220,000 barrels per day — roughly 3.5% of US imports. No wonder Washington would rather siphon oil from a manageable adversary than allow inflation to erode its domestic standing.

But oil prices alone do not explain the full picture. A more underreported — and arguably more strategic — motivation lies in countering Chinese influence. As I’ve recently written, Venezuela has become a quiet but critical node in Beijing’s energy belt. As oil analyst Antonio de la Cruz puts it, “it’s not about Caracas… it’s about Beijing.”

With over half a million barrels per day flowing to China under opaque contracts, US sanctions have become increasingly toothless. Chevron’s return is thus a surgical maneuver to reassert US presence and try to prevent China from “monopolizing” Venezuela’s reserves — which, suffice to say, are among the largest in the world.

This aligns with what some have called a “tightrope act”: re-engaging Venezuela without legitimizing Maduro, thereby preserving strategic leverage in the Caribbean. In this light, Chevron is less an oil company than a geopolitical instrument.

Not everyone buys the high-strategy explanation, for sure. Some view the decision as a byproduct of corporate lobbying and debt recovery, pure and simple. After all, Chevron spent over $9 million with lobbying in 2024 alone, and still seeks to recover at least $1.7 billion of Venezuela’s unpaid debts. With Washington, it is always a bit of both.

The new license is structured under “external profit control” — ostensibly to “keep Maduro at bay” — but critics contend that this is window dressing. No wonder some suggest that Chevron, not the State Department, is setting the policy tone in Caracas.

In any case, diplomatic gestures have also played a role. A recent prisoner exchange — ten Americans for 252 Venezuelans — softened bilateral tensions somewhat. Though underreported, this development (which was being quietly discussed for some time) arguably created space for economic détente, at least in limited form.

Yet internal contradictions abound. Hardliners like Secretary of State Marco Rubio have reportedly voiced concerns about re-engaging Maduro, fearing that any deal — no matter how conditional — may embolden “Chavismo”. I’ve written before about Trump’s emboldened neo-Monroeism and its focus on Latin America. The administration thus walks a narrow line between realpolitik and ideological consistency.

In conclusion, Trump’s Venezuela manoeuvre is a case study in hyper-pragmatism. It reveals a foreign policy often driven by domestic cost-benefit calculations, corporate influence, and geopolitical hedging — rather than any coherent doctrine. Whether this move stabilizes fuel prices or merely enriches a few players remains to be seen. Be it as it may, Trump’s often unpredictable foreign policy remains erratic, improvisational, and at times strategically opaque.

By James Carden, Substack, 7/28/25

Despite the myriad of disasters the permanent state—with the assistance of its allies in the media and its enablers on Capitol Hill—have brought about, it remains as entrenched as ever, Trump’s claims to the contrary.

How is that?

One answer is that, of course, the permanent state is lavishly well funded; it essentially functions as a public-private enterprise, in which Washington think tanks play a critical role. Perhaps it has escaped the administration’s notice, but tax-exempt organizations like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (which has assets of over half a billion dollars) are, as we speak, providing an institutional home for a number of men and women who sought to overthrow Trump’s first administration.

Now that DNI Gabbard has revealed the extent to which the Obama administration, acting in concert with former CIA director John Brennan, had to do with fomenting the Russia ‘collusion’ scandal, the administration might do well to turn its attention to a number of Washington tax-exempts that have long protected discredited members of the national security apparatus.

The Brookings Institution’s links to Russiagate, via Fiona Hill, are by now well known. It was Hill who made the connection between Igor Danchenko and Christopher Steele, the mendacious ex-British spy who authored the Steele Dossier. And it was Danchenko whose fantasies fueled the most salacious parts of that report, which went on to serve as a foundational report for Brennan’s fictitious Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) of January 6, 2017.

As it happens, one of the proud authors (they were all handpicked by Brennan) of the Intelligence Community Assessment, Gavin Wilde, served as a former NSC director for Russia during the first Trump administration and is now nonresident fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The ICA claimed, without evidence (or logic), that Putin interfered in the US election to benefit Trump and kicked off what was to be a years-long McCarthyite witch hunt culminating in his first impeachment. The impeachment drive, as readers will recall, was set off by an Ukrainian-American dual national on the staff of the National Security Council who decided that he, not the president, was responsible for the conduct of US foreign policy.

The Ukrainian national, a publicity-hungry Army foreign affairs officer named Alexander Vindman worked with a CIA operative detailed to the Trump NSC, Eric Ciaramella, who, reports indicate, leaked the contents of a phone call Trump had with Ukrainian president Zelensky to the staff of House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Chairman Adam Schiff. As it happens, Ciaramella now works side by side with Wilde at the Carnegie Endowment where he serves as senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program.

In addition to these two, Carnegie boasts a slew of former high ranking intelligence and diplomatic officials, including Biden and Obama era national intelligence officers; former CIA operatives; and even a Clinton-era national security council staffer with a sideline in writing comic books.

Trump may think he is hitting the permanent state where it lives with indiscriminate firings across the federal workforce, but until such time as the IRS and Department of Justice turn their sights on the tax exempt status of institutions like Carnegie, the permanent state will not only survive, it will thrive.