Ukraine has been wary of exactly what security guarantees will look like. Just before Monday's meetings, Zelensky said peace must be "lasting" and not echo the "so called 'security guarantees' in 1994."

"They didn't work," Zelensky continued.

In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear weapons in the country in exchange for security "assurances" from the U.S, U.K. and from Russia. The agreement—a political pledge worded to safeguard the "independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine"—became known as the Budapest Memorandum. Russia violated the memorandum in 2014 and 2022.

One would be hard pressed to consider it an unreasonable condition. No matter how one views NATO or Russia, one fact is absolutely indisputable: Russia invaded Ukraine. If there is to be peace, Zelenskyy quite naturally wants to feel confident that Russia will not invade Ukraine a second time.

In what has become a pattern for Russia, Putin has helped punctuate Zelenskyy’s arguments. While Zelenskyy and several European leaders were meeting with President Trump yesterday, Russia was launching the largest drone and missile attack on Ukraine in weeks.

The air force said Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles into Ukraine, of which 30 drones and six missiles were intercepted or suppressed. The air force reported the impacts of 40 drones and four missiles across 16 locations, with debris reportedly falling in three locations.

Exactly what strategic imperative motivated Putin to launch this attack at this time is an unknown. What is not unknown is that such an attack is an ironic counterpoint to Trump’s pre-meeting assessment of Zelenskyy’s position:

Ahead of Monday's meetings, Trump appeared to be pressuring Zelenskyy into making a deal. "President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight," Trump wrote on social media on Sunday.

With Russia continuing missile and drone attacks, however, how many options does Ukraine have besides fighting? If Russia refuses to stop attacking, how does Ukraine have the power to end the war?

While launching this attack, Putin also created a complication in the peace process: he is adamantly opposed to NATO forces being stationed in Ukraine.

The president later confirmed that Putin would accept security guarantees for Ukraine, though Russian officials on Monday said that the presence of NATO troops in the country would be unacceptable.

Yet how else can Ukraine have a meaningful security guarantee that will work to keep Russia from launching a fresh invasion later? As I wrote yesterday, no matter how the war in Ukraine ends, Putin will have NATO forces directly on Russia’s borders.

Moreover, a simple glance at a map of Europe confirms one thing: any peacekeeping force of any size is going to involve troops from NATO countries.

As Russia is the aggressor against Ukraine, there is only one entity in a position to even make a credible security guarantee for Ukraine, and that is NATO. A quick glance at a map of NATO countries shows that to have always been the case.

If NATO does not provide Ukraine with a security guarantee, who else is left? Besides no one, that is.

Even Donald Trump has conceded that Putin is not exactly making the path to peace an easy one.

Trump admitted the conflict was "a tough one" to solve and conceded it was possible the Russian president was not interested in ending hostilities.

"We're going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks," he said on Tuesday. "It's possible that he doesn't want to make a deal."

Putin faced a "rough situation" if that were the case, Trump added, without offering any details.

Putin’s contradictory moves regarding peace with Ukraine are not new, however. From the very beginning of the war there has been a fair bit of policy schizophrenia in the Kremlin over Ukraine.

Even before Putin invaded, it was patently obvious that a war would be costly for Russia and Ukraine as well as Europe overall.

Despite the economic price tag, Putin ordered the invasion anyway.

Now the question is whether Putin can bring himself to order the Russians to stop.

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The last time Zelenskyy was in the Oval Office was February, when he received a verbal lashing from President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who accused him of not being grateful enough for U.S. military assistance.

Monday's meeting was a much more cordial affair, with Trump and Zelenskyy sharing smiles and Zelenskyy thanking the president for his personal efforts to bring this conflict to a close.

Few are likely to forget the video footage of Zelenskyy pouting and huffing and puffing like a recalcitrant toddler because Donald Trump wasn’t saying what Zelenskyy wanted to hear.

Never has one person done so much to snatch certain defeat from the jaws of potential victory.

By all media accounts, today’s meeting as a more civil affair.

Certainly Donald Trump was pleased with how the meeting went.

Was there an actual peace breakthrough?

Possibly.

However, one pivotal question remains largely unanswered: will Zelenskyy and Ukraine agree to the territorial concessions sought by Putin? Corporate media has already sounded a skeptical note.

Zelenskiy has already all but rejected the outline of Putin's proposals from the Alaska meeting. Those include handing over the remaining quarter of its eastern Donetsk region, which is largely controlled by Russia. Ukrainian forces are deeply dug into the region, whose towns and hills serve as a crucial defensive zone to stymie Russian attacks.

Any concession of Ukrainian territory would have to be approved by a referendum.

We should note that the concession of the remainder of Donetsk would be in addition to Russia keeping the portions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson it currently controls.

At face value, at least some of the demands would present huge challenges for Ukraine's leadership to accept.

Putin's offer ruled out a ceasefire until a comprehensive deal is reached, blocking a key demand of Zelenskiy, whose country is hit daily by Russian drones and ballistic missiles.

Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said.

Ukraine has already rejected any retreat from Ukrainian land such as the Donetsk region, where its troops are dug in and which Kyiv says serves as a crucial defensive structure to prevent Russian attacks deeper into its territory.

Still, there is a perverse irony at play here. The quid pro quo for Ukraine to these territorial concessions would be strong security guarantees for Ukraine—something President Trump has signaled a willingness to provide.

"When it comes to security, there's going to be a lot of help," Trump told reporters, adding that European countries would be involved. "They are a first line of defence because they're there, but we'll help them out."

For context, we should recall Russia’s stance at the outset of this war, as articulated by Anatoly Antonov, Russian envoy to Washington, DC:

"Our principled position regarding the settlement of the conflict has been clearly defined," Antonov said, "including the demand for an unconditional consideration of Russia's security interests, the demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state, ensuring its neutral and non-nuclear status as well as the recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics."

If there is a peace deal (key word remains “if”), Ukraine arguably has been effectively demilitarized by three-and-a-half years of war, but US and Europe security guarantees mean Ukraine’s neutrality is completely off the table. That much is evident from Trump’s leaving the door open to potentially stationing US forces in Ukraine at some point.

Asked specifically whether that meant American boots on the ground, Trump said: “I’ll let you know on that later today.”“We're meeting with seven great leaders of great countries also, and we'll be talking about that,” Trump said, referring to the European leaders who he met with after the Zelenskyy meeting.

Whether there are US forces in Ukraine, or EU forces, there is one overarching reality about the nature of a security guarantee for Ukraine: it will be provided by NATO forces.

The very thing which presumably concerned Putin the most—NATO forces directly on Russia’s border all along Russia’s border—is now a predicate for Putin to end the war he began when he invaded Ukraine.

If there is a peace deal, Putin might get the Donbass, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, but across the Dniepro will almost certainly be NATO troops. It seems unlikely that Finland and Sweden will reverse their decisions to join NATO reached after Putin invaded Ukraine, meaning that NATO will be able to maintain a military presence at or close to the Russian border from Murmansk in the north to Sevastopol in the south. The Baltic Sea is now a NATO lake, meaning NATO can shut down two of Russia’s main oil terminals (Primorsk and Ust-Luga) on extremely short notice. If Turkey closes the Dardanelles, the third, Novorossiysk, is likewise effectively shut down.

Russia’s pipelines are largely organized to feed those three ports—a strategic vulnerability that Russia will not be able to resolve for another decade at least (building new pipelines east across Siberia will not be a quick or easy project).

If there is a peace deal, Putin would keep Crimea—but restoring or replacing the water flow of the North Crimean Canal, which provided most of Crimea’s water for agriculture, as of last fall remains a challenging engineering obstacle in the aftermath of the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on the Dniepro near Kherson. Whether the Black Sea Fleet would be able to return to its former base at Sevastopol from its current port at Novorossiysk is at best problematic. Without the water flow from the North Crimean Canal and the capacity to station the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, the military and economic utility of Crimea to Russia is significantly diminished.

Russia is effectively encircled by NATO. The Baltic is now a NATO lake, with NATO countries in firm control of choke points controlling Russia’s oil terminals from which flow the bulk of Russia’s energy exports. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is neutered, probably permanently.

Putin may acquire a bit of territory, but the price tag is certain to result in a weaker, more vulnerable, less defensible Russia.

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Readers will recall I had speculated at the time Putin might be making a mistake.

Certainly President Trump’s latest comments on the war in Ukraine indicate that he did.

President Donald Trump said that he is "not happy" with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his continuing war in Ukraine.

"I'm not happy with Putin, because he's killing a lot of people," Trump said at his Tuesday Cabinet meeting, adding that many of those people being killed were Russia's own soldiers. "We get a lot of bulls--- thrown at us by Putin," Trump added, as he dismissed the Russian leader's friendliness as "meaningless." The president said he was seriously considering imposing sanctions on Moscow.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened sanctions, or implied there would more sanctions on Russia, and this latest iteration of those statements may ultimately fade away just as the others have.

However, Trump’s mercurial rhetoric on Russia has recently also been seasoned with stronger statements of support for Ukraine, including sending more weapons to Ukraine—something a large part of the MAGA Coalition opposes.

Without US support, Ukraine does not have the resources to prevail against Russia. Even with US support, Ukraine is far from assured even surviving the war with Russia.

Yet Russia is also in bad shape because of the war.

Whether he realizes it or not, Putin needs to end the war sooner rather than later. May's Istanbul talks might have been his opportunity to end the war on favorable terms.

Trump moving more onto Ukraine's side in response to Putin's reflexive duplicity might be a very large and growing larger consequence for Putin of undermining the talks he himself said he wanted.

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Ukraine claims to have hit more than 40 Russian bomber planes at a number of military airbases, in one of its most audacious drone attacks since the war began.

Sources from Ukraine's security service, SBU, told the BBC strategic bombers were "burning en masse" in an operation named "Spider's Web", personally overseen by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Several things are remarkable about this particular series of drone attacks.

Deep Penetration Into Russian Territory

Ukraine has succeeded in striking Russian airbases as far away as Murmansk and Irkutsk Oblasts, literally on the other side of Russia from Ukraine.

ZeroHedge is reporting that the Russian Ministry of Defense has confirmed drone strikes at several airbases across Russia.

Affected airfields reportedly include:

• Murmansk Oblast

• Irkutsk Oblast

• Ivanovo Oblast

• Ryazan Oblast

• Amur Oblast

As noted with some of the released drone footage, Belaya Airbase is over 2500 miles away from Ukrainian territory.

Regardless of the measure of damage actually done—which reports indicate is significant—the drone penetration is a massive failure of Russian defenses, both aerial and terrestrial.

Not only were the drones able to strike airbases which house Russia’s strategic bomber forces (part of Russia’s nuclear weapons posture), but several of the launches involved covert penetrations deep into Russian territory.

Russian Logistics Impacted

While the headline casualty reports center on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, Ukraine has also succeeded in destroying two railway bridges in Kursk and Bryansk Oblasts.

Disrupting rail traffic in these regions is likely to make Russia’s efforts to prepare a reported planned offensive against Sumy that much more difficult.

Peace Talks Set For Tomorrow

The extent of the reported damage alone makes the drone strikes militarily significant, but they also come one day before Moscow and Kyiv are slated to begin a second round of peace talks in Istanbul.

The line being reported out of the Kremlin is that Putin wants to end the war, but is not prepared to seek “peace at any price.”

President Vladimir Putin's conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia, according to three Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and has shown increasing frustration with Putin in recent days, warning on Tuesday the Russian leader was "playing with fire" by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv as his forces made gains on the battlefield.

One report attributes to Putin a desire to demonstrate to Ukraine that if Ukraine and NATO do not accede to Russia’s peace requirements “peace tomorrow will be even more painful.”

One way to view Ukraine’s drone strikes is that Kyiv demonstrated to Putin that his “pain” logic works in both directions.

Will this make Putin more or less amenable to formulating a ceasefire and crafting a final peace? That question will remain open until tomorrow’s peace talks at the very least.

With the Russian military denouncing the drone attacks as a “terrorist act”, the probability that Putin has been incentivized to do more to achieve peace does not seem very high, and expectations are not high overall for tomorrow’s peace talks.

Prelude To Further Escalation?

With Poland and Finland participating in NATO defense exercises just over the Finnish border from Russia (and therefore close to the stricken airbases), the inevitable question arises whether this latest round of drone strikes pushes the Ukraine war towards an inevitable escalation involving direct confrontation with at lease one NATO country, and possibly the entire alliance.

Notably, the NATO exercises have also led to Poland moving at least one HIMARS battery into Finnish territory.

Do Ukraine’s drone attacks indicate that Russia’s northern defenses are particularly vulnerable. Will Poland be tempted to strike into northern Russia while Russia’s military is bogged down in Ukraine?

In one sense the war’s dynamic has not changed. Without continued military aid and materiel from NATO and the US, Ukraine does not have the resources to hold out indefinitely against Russia, and recent advances by Russia may indicate that Ukraine’s defenses are starting to crumble.

However, Ukraine’s repeated ability to make deep drone incursions into Russian territory highlights significant vulnerabilities within Russia’s overall defense posture. This is not to say Russia is defenseless against HIMARS launches from Finnish territory, but it is mathematically certain they are less able to defend against a Polish/Finnish/NATO incursion than previously thought.

This much is certain: the stakes on the next round of peace talks just got higher.

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With Russia mounting continued missile attacks on Ukraine even as President Trump pushes for peace, that question is unavoidable.

Ukrainian air force officials said on Tuesday that Russia deployed 60 drones across multiple regions through the night, injuring 10 people. Kyiv’s air defences intercepted 43 of them – 35 were shot down while eight were diverted using electronic warfare systems.

What are we to make of Putin’s recent choices?

Certainly it is difficult to argue that Putin is seriously pursuing peace, after he arguably sabotaged the direct talks with Ukraine that he himself proposed by not attending them.

If anything, Putin seems far more interested in disproving President Trump’s self-aggrandizing claims that only he can broker a peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Corporate media, of course, has been only too willing to oblige Putin in advancing that particular narrative.

What has changed, however, is that Putin’s behavior is now a liability for Trump, who painted himself into a corner with laughable claims that he could end the war before he even took office, or on day one. The Russian president played along with Trump, as he has for years, because it is in Russia’s interest to have an anti-American, anti-democratic force of chaos in the Oval Office, but none of that meant that Putin was going to stop the war.

What corporate media ignores, however, is that President Trump has been the only world leader actively promoting the idea that peace between Russia and Ukraine is preferable to war.

It was President Trump who encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take Putin up on his proposal for direct talks, a proposal which came at a time when the EU was preparing to insist on further sanctions against Russia. Trump was hardly wrong when he pointed that out on Truth Social.

Ironically, Trump himself may have already crafted the most substantial blow to the Russian war effort in recent weeks. The plunge in oil prices Trump catalyzed with the Liberation Day tariff announcement at the beginning of April was equally impactful on Russia’s Urals benchmark oil blend.

Conservatively, Trump’s tariffs are responsible for depriving Russia of approximately $10/bbl of oil revenue.

What Putin may not be fully comprehending is that President Trump’s Truth Social posts reflect President Trump’s intention to make good on one of his Agenda 47 pledges to US voters.

Donald Trump wants peace between Russia and Ukraine, even as the minerals deal reached between the US and Ukraine establishes a clear US interest in Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

If Putin does not seriously pursue peace with Ukraine, where will that leave Trump, if not in a position where continued US support for Ukraine’s war effort is not merely inevitable but in many respects mandatory?

Russia’s small military gains are increasingly not enough to ward off the economic hits Russia has taken because of sanctions, a reality that has been punctuated in recent months by a dramatic drop in business confidence in Russia.

With Donald Trump as the key to whether sanctions on Russia are eased or increased, how strategic is Putin being alienating Trump by declining to seriously pursue the peace talks Trump desires?

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That is a question we must now ask, as Putin opted not to accompany the Russian delegation which arrived in Istanbul to participate in in the “direct talks” with Ukraine which Putin himself had suggested.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took Putin up on his offer and committed to be in Istanbul to meet with Putin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had challenged the Kremlin leader to attend the talks "if he's not afraid," in an apparent contest to show Trump who wants peace more. Zelenskiy was on his way to Turkey, a Ukrainian official said. Earlier, the Kyiv leader has said he would take part in the negotiations only if Putin were there.

With the Ukrainian Defense and Foreign Ministers included in their delegation to the talks, there is no denying that Ukraine’s delegation included more senior officials than Russia’s, officials who would be able to speak authoritatively and make decisions.

Moreover, not only did Putin send a lower-level delegation—headed by the same man who headed the failed 2022 negotiations—shortly before the talks could begin Russia launched another drone attack on Ukrainian cities.

Prior to the planned negotiations, the Russian army attacked Ukraine with 145 drones, injuring dozens of people, and continued to grind forward on the enormous battlefield in the country’s east.

“Russians are getting ready to continue their offensive in Ukraine while pushing for negotiations, and that’s a normal practice, let’s be honest,” Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence, told reporters Wednesday in Kyiv. “Talks do not mean a solution.”

It is difficult to see Putin or the delegation as wanting peace when Putin intentionally chooses more war.

Why did Putin propose talks if he was not going to treat them seriously? Was he merely attempting to forestall the imposition of further sanctions? That could prove to be a consequential misreading of the situation, as President Trump has been reportedly considering additional sanctions on Russia if he was persuaded Russia was trying to frustrate the peace process Trump has been attempting to initiate.

Trump, who is growing increasingly frustrated with both Russia and Ukraine as he tries to push them towards a peace settlement, said he was "always considering" secondary sanctions against Moscow if he thought it was blocking the process.

U.S. officials have spoken about possible financial sanctions as well as potential secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil.

Toying with talks—which Putin has arguably done in Istanbul—could very easily be the proof Trump needs to justify further sanctioning Russia. With the EU having threatened further sanctions if Russia did not agree to a 30-day ceasefire, giving Trump a reason to get on board with the EU ultimatum is a poor tactical choice for Putin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has panned Zelensky’s calls for a ceasefire, claiming that Ukraine would merely use the time to rearm and resupply front-line troops in Eastern Ukraine. Lavrov might be right, and Zelensky sending a high-ranking delegation to Istanbul could be merely performative—certainly the media has emphasized that Zelensky has been making a point in agreeing to these talks of showing to Donald Trump that Ukraine is not the obstacle to peace—but the same accusation could be made against Russia.

As I have said before, achieving peace requires both sides to take chances. Donald Trump took a chance urging Zelensky to agree to Putin’s proposed talks. Zelensky took a chance by agreeing to direct talks. The EU has taken a chance by delaying the imposition of further sanctions on Russia. Putin himself even took a chance proposing the direct talks.

All sides are going to have to take many more chances than just agreeing to talks and then merely going through the motions. Serious negotiations will be needed, and difficult choices will have to be made.

President Trump has been consistent in articulating a desire to see “this stupid war” in Ukraine ended. Full disclosure: I share that desire. Peace is what is in the best interests of both Ukraine and Russia. Peace needs to happen, and it needs to happen now.

At the same time, however, we should not ignore that Zelensky agreed to Trump’s minerals deal, which gives the United States a definable interest in not just Ukrainian sovereignty but Ukrainian territorial integrity. Regardless of how economically important that agreement will or will not be, its geopolitical consequence is that it creates a foundation for Trump to continue to support Ukraine’s war effort.

Russia can almost certainly outlast Ukraine if US support is withdrawn. Whether Russia can do so if US support is maintained and even increased is a far less certain proposition.

Both Putin and Zelensky want to end the war on terms which favor their respective countries. By ghosting his own talks, Putin may have seriously damaged his own prospects for getting what he wants out of the inevitable peace process.

That would be a mistake, and it appears to be the mistake Putin has made in Istanbul.

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Update 3:00AM CDT 15 May 2025

According to RIA Novosti, the Russian delegation has arrived in Istanbul to being direct negotiations with Ukraine on ending the war.

RIA Novosti also detailed the composition of the Ukrainian delegation.

As reported by Radio NV, citing sources, the Ukrainian delegation that will travel to Turkey with Volodymyr Zelensky will include the head of his office Andriy Yermak, deputy head of the office Ihor Zhovkva, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha.

Will the talks be productive? That is always the existential question surrounding any negotiations.

RIA Novosti is certainly providing a narrative which could rationalize these negotiations ultimately failing.

Former senator from Crimea, member of the expert council under the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Olga Kovitidi believes that the upcoming talks in Istanbul will raise the issue of establishing the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict, since without this it will be difficult to move forward.

If the Russian focus is on arguing “root causes” of the conflict, is that likely to be a framework which can lead to at least a ceasefire agreement—which is one of Ukraine’s immediate objectives?

Insofar as a debate over “root causes” is concerned, it is worth noting that Medinsky is an ardent Russian nationalist with a hagiographic view of the Russian Federation and how it ties to the former Russian Empire as well as the Soviet Union, a view which dovetails with Vladimir Putin’s own views on Russian history.

It should also be noted that RIA Novosti reports that Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Security Council head Sergi Shoigu met with Medinsky and the delegation prior to their departure for Istanbul, which suggests the Kremlin has fully briefed the delegation on how they want the talks to be handled.

It is anybody’s guess what the outcome of the negotiations will be. The Gateway Pundit has struck a hopeful note that the talks are still scheduled to take place, with neither Russia nor Ukraine backing out.

The success or failure of the talks hinges on the willingness of the two delegations to actually engage in a dialog and not merely reiterate both sides’ predetermined talking points. Only time will reveal if the two delegations are up to that challenge.

Update 3:30PM CDT 14 May 2025

According to Russian media outlet Kommersant, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will not be attending the talks with Ukraine to be held tomorrow in Istanbul. The Kremlin still has not said if Putin will be attending.

This clarifies and corrects earlier unconfirmed reports that Lavrov would be heading the delegation.

Kommersant has also published the names of the officials comprising Russia’s delegation. They are:

• Vladimir Medinsky. Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation (Delegation Head)

• Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

• Igor Kostyukov, Head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

• Alexander Fomin, Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation

Medinsky was the head of the Russian delegation to the failed peace talks in 2022.

We should remember that Putin was the one who proposed these talks. This begs the question: Is the Russian delegation indicative of Russian seriousness about the talks?

Has Putin assigned individuals who can speak decisively on the Russian perspective and regarding Russian issues?

Should Putin have assigned Lavrov or someone else from the Kremlin’s inner circle? Should Putin have put himself on the Delegation?

These talks are Putin’s idea. He proposed, Trump endorsed, Zelensky agreed.

Is it too much to expect that Vladimir Putin should put in an appearance at “direct talks” he himself requested?

At the moment, Putin appears to be doing an excellent job of proving the naysayers right. If that’s the case, he’s also making an excellent case for President Trump to get fully behind increasing sanctions on Russia.

Starting Point

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to Putin’s proposed direct talks in Istanbul, but insists he will only negotiate with Putin himself.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the stakes ahead of a potential meeting with Vladimir Putin in Turkey by saying he wouldn’t hold talks with any Russian representative other than the president himself.

However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has been evasive on whether Putin will attend the scheduled talks.

“No, nothing has changed in that regard. We will do this when we receive appropriate instructions from the President. So far, there have been no such instructions,” he said when asked whether it is already possible to present the composition of the Russian delegation.

Peskov stressed that everything said by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the night statement on May 11 remains relevant. “The Russian delegation will wait for the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul on May 15, Thursday, that is, tomorrow,” the press secretary of the head of state reminded.

Ironically, Russian state media is playing up the direct talks as proof of Putin’s “mastery” of events in Ukraine.

Although the Russian president spoke quietly and gently, attentive listeners unmistakably caught the verdict in his words: the goodwill of Russia, which Kiev has repeatedly wiped its feet, violating absolutely all our peace initiatives, has exhausted itself, so no one can blame us now. But, based on respect for the efforts of the American side to end the conflict and personal good attitude to US President Donald Trump, Putin took a huge reciprocal step and agreed to negotiate with the Kiev regime.

Thus comes the question: why is Putin being coy about whether he will or will not attend?

While it may be fairly argued—and I have argued—that Putin is taking a step towards peace by proposing the talks, that step only moves towards peace if it is followed by other steps.

Putin took a step by proposing the talks. At President Trump’s urging, Zelensky agreed to the talks.

Russian state media quotes Trump in Saudi Arabia about Trump’s high expectations for the talks.

“It is very important that the talks will be held in Turkey at the end of this week, possibly Thursday. And they can give quite good results,” he said, speaking at an investment forum in Saudi Arabia.

With Russia’s own media outlets playing up the talks both in terms of strategic importance and as a demonstration of Putin’s geopolitical leadership, arguably Russia is helping set the expectation that Putin will be at those talks.

That makes the Kremlin’s silence on Putin’s presence at the talks somewhat mystifying.

One admittedly cynical interpretation comes from the Institute for the Study of War, which suspects Putin is trying to self-sabotage the talks.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict monitor, said on Monday that Russian officials already appeared to be setting conditions for Putin to reject the meeting, quoting several key aides as questioning Zelensky’s intentions and calling the proposed meeting “pure spectacle.”

That would be a strategic gamble on Putin’s part, as not following through with the talks he himself proposed only adds weight to the argument for the EU to sanction Russia further for failing to agree to a ceasefire ultimatum. The gamble is that any additional sanctions will likely require US agreement and involvement in order to be enforceable.

If the Trump Administration does not agree to more sanctions, the EU ultimatum could be revealed as a largely empty threat.

However, given that Trump urged Zelenksy to agree to the talks, and is being vocal about the talks’ potential for a diplomatic breakthrough on Ukraine, Putin backing out of talks would give President Trump a reason to go along with additional sanctions.

Achieving peace requires taking chances. Putin took a chance proposing the talks. Trump took a chance supporting the idea of talks even without a ceasefire. Zelensky took a chance agreeing to talks.

Now additional chances must be taken by actually having the talks. Zelensky has said he is willing to take those additional chances by going to Istanbul. Putin would be well advised to take those additional chances as well and be in Istanbul to talk to Zelensky as Putin himself suggested.

Update 07:30 AM CDT 12 May 2025

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is either taking a positive step forward towards peace or taking the bait in a Vladimir Putin head fake on talks. While reiterating his call for a general ceasefire, Zelenskyy is tentatively agreeing to meet with Putin in Turkey and talk.

The challenge in holding talks without a ceasefire in place is that there is no guarantee Russia would agree to a ceasefire once talks begin. There is also a risk that Putin will not negotiate in good faith, instead choosing to use the direct talks as a means to forestall further sanctions while continuing to press Ukraine on the battlefield.

But Putin’s offer for direct talks – made in a rare televised address at 1 a.m. local time Sunday – was a gamble to distract from the fact that Russia is likely to snub Monday’s ceasefire deadline, analysts said.

Putin’s offer put Zelensky under “huge pressure” to agree to hold talks in Turkey, Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNN.

“Why? Because otherwise, he’ll have to deal with Trump, who’s going to say, ‘Why are you undermining my peace initiative here? Why can’t you just talk?’”

This is a very real risk in agreeing to these talks.

However, while Putin is putting pressure on Ukraine militarily, military gains have been relatively small and incremental.

Even after months of attacks, pressure, and casualties, a key Ukrainian defensive position, Pokrovsk, still has not been taken by Russian forces.

That’s a problem for Putin, a problem made worse by a 24% drop in the price of Russia’s benchmark Urals oil blend.

Russia needs oil revenues to fund its war effort; the drop in oil prices is a severe crimp in that funding.

An argument could be made that Putin would find a ceasefire right now advantageous, as it would open a window of opportunity to reinforce and resupply Russian troops in eastern Ukraine—at the risk of Ukraine doing the same thing.

This is the nature of the gamble in agreeing to Putin’s offer of direct talks. On the one hand, it is not a ceasefire, but on the other hand that means the negotiations are not a cover for resupply and a fresh military buildup.

This is also why the EU should follow through with its threat of further sanctions despite the offer of talks. Talks are not a ceasefire, and the EU ultimatum was for a ceasefire.

There will need to be some risks taken if there is to be peace in Ukraine. While talks are a risk worth taking at this point, no one should presume the talks are themselves a guarantee there will be peace. They are at most a starting point and a chance for peace.

Starting Point

Is the Trump Administration’s apparent diplomatic success brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan about to pay an unexpected dividend in Ukraine?

Maybe. Vladimir Putin wants to talk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed holding direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on May 15, hours after Kyiv and European leaders called for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire to start Monday.

This is not to say that Donald Trump is the only factor here. He isn’t. Ukraine and the EU preceded Putin’s offer of direct talks with an ultimatum: agree to a 30-day ceasefire or face further sanctions.

However, the EU ultimatum was itself preceded by substantially the same ultimatum by Donald Trump, issued on May 8 in a post on Truth Social.

Moreover, Trump, Ukraine, and the EU have been pushing Russia to commit to a 30-day ceasefire for quite some time.

Yesterday, Putin responded not by agreeing to a ceasefire but offering direct talks “without preconditions”.

"We propose to the Kyiv authorities to resume the talks that they broke off in 2022, and, I emphasise, without any preconditions," Putin said.

Trump’s response on Truth Social was positive—although it did not rescind either his call for a ceasefire or the threat of sanctions if a ceasefire was not forthcoming.

Talks are not a ceasefire, and at first glance this is easily dismissed as an effort by Putin to evade the diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire, which is the assessment of the BBC.

So, is the Kremlin's offer a serious peace initiative? Or is it simply an attempt by Moscow to play for time and to prolong the war? And, with this proposal, might Russia also be trying to split the Western coalition that is backing Ukraine?

However, while it is appropriate to question Putin’s motives for offering direct talks, it is equally appropriate to question Putin’s timing. Why make the offer now? What has changed with respect to the war in Ukraine that he decided to offer a counter-proposal to a ceasefire?

The sanctions threats are certainly one alteration in the status quo—but Russia is already heavily sanctioned. The practical impact of further sanctions seems problematic at best.

There is also Zelenskyy’s decision to (finally) sign a minerals deal with the United States. Regardless of the relative merits and demerits of that deal, its one undeniable geopolitical reality is that it gives the United States a vested interest in both Ukrainian sovereignty and Ukrainian territorial integrity—two elements that heretofore have been missing regarding military support for Ukraine’s war effort. The existence of that deal means Vladimir Putin cannot hope to simply wait for US war fatigue to persuade the Trump Administration to simply wash its hands of Ukraine.

But there is also the geopolitical reality that the world is having to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly in some cases, Donald Trump as being a serious peacemaker on the world stage. That is an unavoidable takeaway of Marco Rubio and JD Vance succeeding in brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan when others could not.

The Gulf States tried to arrange a ceasefire and failed. China wanted a ceasefire but could not get one. Even Russia offered to mediate a ceasefire without success. The Trump Administration succeeded—and as of this writing, that ceasefire is holding.

What does the ceasefire between India and Pakistan have to do with Putin? It adds gravitas to Trump’s earlier calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine—and that adds gravitas to the EU ultimatum. Coupled with the strategic reality that, thanks to the minerals deal, the US now has a direct interest in Ukraine to protect, if the Trump Administration “walks away” from peace efforts that could very easily mean walking towards greater military support for Ukraine.

Russia can grind just Ukraine down in a war of attrition. Russia might even be able to outlast the EU in their economic war of attrition over Ukraine.

If the United States continues to provide material support to Ukraine, however, Russia cannot grind just Ukraine down, certainly not in a short period of time.

Time is not Russia’s ally in this war. It never really was, and it absolutely is not now.

Trump receiving a boost of geopolitical credibility by arranging the ceasefire between India and Pakistan might very well have been the tipping point where Putin is convinced he needs to do “something”. Between the minerals deal and the India-Pakistan ceasefire, Trump’s leverage to pressure Russia to sit down and negotiate has only increased, and might have increased enough to move Putin off his initial position.

Direct talks are not a ceasefire, but neither are they a rejection of diplomacy. For whatever reason, Putin is warming up to diplomacy over Ukraine—at least superficially.

Should there be direct talks? Possibly—although the first item to be discussed would without a doubt be a ceasefire.

Should the talks preclude the imposition of further sanctions? Probably not. Both Trump and the EU have issued the sanction threat. It would be a dangerous message to send to Putin if he can use the chimera of talks to evade further sanctions against Russia.

However, everyone should remember that peace is what is in the best interests of both Ukraine and Russia, geopolitical posturing be damned.

Putin is starting to bend towards seeking peace over Ukraine. If Putin is more willing to respond to the United States as peacemaker as a result of India and Pakistan’s ceasefire, that is an opening in the Ukraine war which should not go to waste.

“During the meeting in the Kremlin, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief heard a report by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov on the situation on the line of contact and said that the Russian side stopped all hostilities from 18:00 [Moscow time] on April 19 to 00:00 [Moscow time] on April 21,” the report said.

Ever skeptical, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy pledged to reciprocate any “genuine” ceasefire.

While they hit “pause” on war for a day, both sides would do well to reflect on what three years of war have brought.

One Million Casualties?

Casualty estimates are just that—estimates.

How many dead are there? How many have been wounded? We do not know precisely.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies has estimated Russia’s total casualties at approximately 172,000 killed, and 611,000 wounded as of early January.

In September of last year, a confidential Ukrainian estimate leaked to the Wall Street Journal speculated that Ukraine had suffered at that point 80,000 dead, and 400,000 wounded. Those numbers have only risen since then.

Even by the most conservative estimates, the total casualties for both sides are well over one million, and the total dead are well over 200,000.

The war in Ukraine long ago became the bloodiest conflict since World War Two.

Stalemate

One reality of this war is absolutely certain: this war is a stalemate.

In April 2022, Russian forces held a jagged line through eastern Ukraine. Two years later, that line has barely shifted. Despite hundreds of thousands of casualties, neither side has made meaningful territorial gains.

A replay of three years of front-line maps shows what words cannot: the lines barely moved, while the body count soared.

Off the battlefield, three years and counting of attritional warfare have left Russia's economy in shambles.

Europe outside of Ukraine has avoided casualties, but their economies are no less a train wreck.

After three years of war, over a million casualties and hundreds of thousands dead, and three years of economic wreckage across the continent, this is what both sides have “won”.

Worth It?

I have a simple question to both sides in this war: has this war been worth it?

Has this war been worth over a million casualties?

Has this war been worth the economic damage to the whole of Europe?

Can Russia or Europe truly believe when this war finally does end that either side will have greater security, power, and influence than it did before?

An Easter ceasefire is a brief respite for the living, but to honor the dead there are questions which must be answered.

This morning, the apparent trajectory of the day was that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was going to appear at the White House for the formal signing of the framework deal negotiated between Trump’s team and Zelenskyy’s for the US to have exclusive rights to help Ukraine develop its mineral wealth.

Instead, Zelenskyy was booted out and told not to come back until he’s ready for peace.

What happened? Apparently, Zelenskyy happened. As the song goes, “then you opened up your mouth/And that is when it started going south”.

Despite having communicated via the media a readiness to sign the minerals deal, Zelenskyy chose the pre-signing presser to have an emotional moment, serving up some sharp criticisms of US and EU policy regarding Ukraine and Russia.

Responding to talk about the importance of diplomacy, President Zelensky appeared to dismiss the utility of American influence altogether, saying under President Obama, the Trump first term, and Biden the U.S. had achieved nothing through talk. This caustic statement, finishing with a rhetorical “What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you speaking about? What do you mean?” led Vice President Vance to retort, with evident distaste: “I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going end the destruction of your country.”

Vance was having none of it, and pushed back on Zelenskyy. Hard.

Mr President with respect I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media, right now you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the President for trying to bring an end to this conflict.

It is certainly possible to disagree with the premise of the minerals deal itself. It is even reasonable that Zelenskyy might believe the minerals deal itself is the Trump Administration attempting to exploit Ukraine’s dire circumstances to get privileged access to Ukraine’s mineral resources.

However, having already agreed to the deal, Zelenskyy chose the worst possible moment to come unglued over having to make such a deal.

In the end, not only did Zelenskyy not come away with a signed deal, Zelenskyy did not come away with the United States firmly in Ukraine’s corner. Zelenskyy’s temper tantrum has completely roiled relations between the US and Ukraine. One does not have to have a PhD in international relations to realize this does not bode well for Ukaine.

Give Peace A Chance

For his part, Donald Trump made his position on Ukraine quite clear in an announcement posted a short time after Zelenskyy left the White House on TruthSocial:

In the spirit of full disclosure, I agree with Donald Trump on this objective. The proper outcome here is peace. Both sides need to stop killing each other and start negotiating with each other.

As I indicated in my last article outlining my immediate takeaways from the deal, the minerals deal made a point of excluding at least Russia from any future participation in tapping Ukraine’s mineral wealth.

The text of the agreement does not mention Russia or Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, but there is very little doubt that a primary objective of the agreement is to exclude Russia from participating in any exploitation of Ukraine’s undeveloped mineral and energy resources.

That much is made clear by one of the articulated predicates to the agreement:

WHEREAS the United States of America and Ukraine wish to ensure that those States and other persons that have acted adversely to Ukraine in the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine following a lasting peace;

Locking Russia out of any negotiation over Ukraine’s economic future perhaps does not possess the short-term and near-term consequences of sanctions, but the long-term impact could prove just as destructive to Russia.

Almost by default, a signed framework agreement puts the onus on Putin to likewise produce a signed deal with the US over….”something.”

A signed deal would have demonstrated that Ukraine and Zelenskyy were prepared to enter into difficult diplomacy as an alternative to pursuing a forever attritional war. That willingness to shift the prevailing narrative surrounding the war in Ukraine would very quickly translate into geopolitical leverage against Russia.

In that regard, if Zelenskyy thought that US involvement in peace negotiations gave Ukraine some sort of edge, he was probably correct.

With no signed deal, however, any leverage Zelensky might have enjoyed over Russia as a result of Trump’s negotiations has vanished.

With no signed deal, there is no chance of either Zelenskyy or Putin actually giving peace a chance.

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World Leaders Are Not Helping

The reactions of world leader’s on both sides of the war in Ukraine were both varied and not terribly useful.

Putin’s longtime associate and Deputy Chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dimitry Medvedev, hardly helped advance the cause of diplomacy in the aftermath of Zelenskyy’s meltdown.

Some will say I am being a tad naive, but Medvedev reveling in Ukraine’s misery is the sort of juvenile antic that makes future engagement with Russia difficult. This was a point Trump made in the press conference before Zelensky’s meltdown.

While Medvedev’s tweet might play well with Russian audiences, it also drove home the premise that Russia hates Ukraine and Zelensky more than Russia cares about its soldiers. That simply is not a sound platform for negotiating any sort of peace deal.

Yet it does not stop with Medvedev or even the Russians broadly.

French President Emmanuel Macron took the position that anything less than outright condemnation of Russia was unacceptable by the world’s leaders.

Spain’s Pedro Sanchez reflexively tweeted his country’s support for Zelensky’s mouth.

Sovereign nations of course have the right to take whatever positions they wish. We can even say the leaders of sovereign nations are free to share those positions on X—or any other social media platform.

But neither Macron nor Sanchez are taking into account the reality that Zelenskyy decided to have his spurt of emotional incontinence in the Oval Office, in front of the cameras, and before the deal was signed.

As a general rule, one does not walk into someone else’ house as a guest and proceed to behave boorishly. The technical term for that is “bad manners”

If Zelenskyy resented the minerals deal, he always had the option of not traveling to Washington. He always had the option of not telling corporate media he was ready to sign the deal.

He did not avail himself of either option.

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Trump’s Position Is Simple: Ceasefire Now, Then Talks

Recriminations aside, President Trump’s position has always been simple and straightforward: everyone needs to stop shooting at each other, stop attacking each other, and start talking to each other.

As he prepared to depart the White House for Florida, President Trump reiterated that point to the press, calling for an “immediate ceasefire”.

With both Ukraine and Russia having suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties in three years of war, why would a ceasefire not make sense to either side?

Zelenskyy pushed back on such proposals, intimating that Putin could not be trusted to honor a ceasefire, and that Ukraine needed “security guarantees” before negotiations could begin.

Zelenskyy made an appearance on Fox News on Friday evening in which he said his public spat with Trump and Vance was “not good for both sides.” But Zelenskyy said Trump — who insists Putin is ready to end the three-year grinding war — needs to understand that Ukraine can’t change its attitudes toward Russia on a dime.

Zelenskyy added that Ukraine won’t enter peace talks with Russia until it has security guarantees against another offensive.

“It’s so sensitive for our people,” Zelenskyy said. “And they just want to hear that America (is) on our side, that America will stay with us. Not with Russia, with us. That’s it.”

While Zelenskyy’s distrust of Putin is eminently understandable, strategically, the question of a ceasefire should never revolve around levels of trust.

Given that Zelenskyy was apparently moving the goalposts at the last minute on the minerals deal, hime arguing about Putin’s basic untrustworthiness is a stance rich in irony.

Putin may end up violating a ceasefire agreement. No one should have any illusions about Putin or his integrity. If Putin thinks it works to his advantage to break a ceasefire arrangement after agreeing to it, he probably will.

Still, even just a day’s respite from war would be a blessing to Ukraine’s armed forces.

A break from missile and drone attacks would allow Ukraine to start rebuilding some its battered citiscapes.

Ukraine needs a ceasefire and it needs a ceasefire now—not next month or next year, but now.

Zelenskyy is not doing Ukraine any favors by rejecting an immediate ceasefire.

For all the likely imperfections of President Trump’s minerals deal, it has the undeniable advantage of being an actual agreement on the negotiating table. It may not be the best step towards a lasting peace for Ukraine. It may not even be a sustainable step towards a lasting peace for Ukraine.

It is, however, a potential step towards a lasting peace for Ukraine. Unfortunately, it is a step Zelenskyy is not yet willing to take.

Will the negotiations over Ukraine’s mineral wealth get back on track? That is impossible to say. Certainly at this point Zelenskyy himself is still firmly unapologetic and unrepentant regarding his comments in the Oval Office, which makes a quick resumption of the final round of negotiations extremely unlikely.

How the Ukrainian legislature view todays events is itself a question mark. Ukraine’s government had to ratify the minerals deal and did so. Will they stand by the deal or will they want to impeach Zelenskyy and remove him?

About the only thing that is certain about the state of the deal is that it is a complete shambles. President Trump went into the Oval Office press conference ready to sign the deal. One wants to believe that President Zelenskyy had the same intent, and then managed to have a temper trantrum, blowing it all up.

Ultimately, Zelensky’s meltdown is a defeat for Ukraine. The minerals deal was never going to be the end of the fighting in Ukraine. The minerals deal was never going to be the beginning of the end of the fighting in Ukraine.

Still, there was at least some chance that the deal could have been the end of the beginning of negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine.

Because of Zelenskyy’s meltdown, there are no negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine either beginning or ending.

That does not bode well for Ukraine.

If the leaked text of the agreement published by the Kyiv Independent is accurate, there is very little which can be said about the terms of the agreement, for the simple reason that there are very few substantive terms to the agreement. Whether this deal is a good or bad deal for the United States is a question that will not be answered for many months, possibly years.

That being said, the text of the agreement that has been leaked to the public is part of the overall context in which the United States and Russia (and, eventually, Ukraine) are negotiating on how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russia Is To Be Excluded

The text of the agreement does not mention Russia or Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, but there is very little doubt that a primary objective of the agreement is to exclude Russia from participating in any exploitation of Ukraine’s undeveloped mineral and energy resources.

That much is made clear by one of the articulated predicates to the agreement:

WHEREAS the United States of America and Ukraine wish to ensure that those States and other persons that have acted adversely to Ukraine in the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine following a lasting peace;

The world can only speculate on the full panoply of reasons Putin had for invading Ukraine in 2022, but Putin’s anachronistic view of geopolitics—a view which is more in keeping with 19th-century perspectives on territorial conquest—certainly does not exclude the potential of expropriating Ukraine’s mineral wealth for Russia’s benefit. Even in Putin’s 2021 revisionist and ethnonationalist rationale for Russia retaking Ukraine there were oblique references to Ukraine’s natural resources.

To the extent that Ukraine has untapped mineral resources, it is not at all unreasonable to presume that Putin would like Russia to get at least a slice of that economic pie.

If the agreement text that has been leaked is indeed the foundation agreement for the United States participating in the exploitation of Ukraine’s mineral resources, Russia willl not be getting even a crumb from that pie. There can be little doubt that Putin and Russia are at the top of the list of “States and other persons that have acted adversely to Ukraine”.

Europe Does Not Profit From Ukraine

That this is a bilateral agreement between the United States and Ukraine for joint development of Ukraine’s mineral and energy resources also has the consequence of largely excluding Europe from any direct participation in any development deals.

In true “America First” fashion, Donald Trump’s negotations have produced an investment agreement which purports to speak to US and Ukrainian interests. Europe is only an afterthought within the text of the agreement.

In drafting the Fund Agreement, the Participants will strive to avoid conflicts with Ukraine’s obligations under its accession to the European Union or its obligations under arrangements with international financial institutions and other official creditors.

Europe and the EU might be able to pursue claims for accelerated reimbursement of loans made to Ukraine, or perhaps might want to swap those loans for participation in the investment fund to be established, but Ukraine will be under no extraordinary pressure to agree to any EU proposals in that regard.

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The United States Has A Defined Interest In Ukraine

As I noted when Ukraine’s agreement to this deal was first reported, this deal by its very nature gives the US a defined articulable interest in supporting Ukraine even militarily.

This is not to say that the United States now has the makings of a casus belli for going to war with Russia over Ukrainian sovereignty. The US does not have that and this agreement does not give the US that.

But this agreement does allow President Trump to point to something concrete and explicit as a governing rationale for providing any further military aid to Ukraine. With an agreement of this sort in place, supporting Ukraine militarily not only supports Ukrainian sovereignty, but also preserves US economic assets related to Ukrainian mineral wealth.

That may or may not be persuasive among Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters, the vast majority of whom want US aid to Ukraine stopped. However, persuasive or not, it is an argument that President Trump can make as an appeal to the American electorate to remain supportive of further funding of Ukraine’s war effort should he see the need to do so.

If Putin’s negotiating strategy has been based on the US simply being unwilling to continue supporting Ukraine, such a presumption by Putin would have to be re-evaluated.

We should take care not to overstate the significance of this when assessing President Trump’s negotiations with Russia over Ukraine. This shift in the geopolitical backdrop for those negotations does not completely undercut Russia’s leverage.

However, if Donald Trump can put forward a reasonable argument for the US to actually continue supporting Ukraine militarily, then Putin cannot rely on President Trump merely losing interest in Ukraine and simply walking away from the entire situation. Putin now has to contend with a United States that is far more likely to be supportive of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Security Interests Are Acknowledged

We should also note that the agreement gives an explicit nod to Ukraine’s 1994 agreement to surrender the Soviet nuclear weapons within Ukraine.

WHEREAS the United States of America and Ukraine recognize the contribution that Ukraine has made to strengthening international peace and security by voluntarily abandoning the world's third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons;

If this agreement is the text which gets signed by both sides, the United States will have made a second acknowledgement of this, the first being the Budapest Memorandum.

That acknowledgement also establishes a further foundation for accepting Ukraine’s own security interests, which the agreement explicitly pledges not to disrupt.

The Government of the United States of America supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace. Participants will seek to identify any necessary steps to protect mutual investments, as defined in the Fund Agreement.

The agreement does not call for Ukraine to enter NATO, nor for NATO countries to provide peacekeeping forces to stand between Ukraine and Russia after a ceasefire is arranged, but it does very specifically leave those doors open. If that is what it takes to protect this agreement, and its future evolutions, this agreement puts the US in the position of not standing in the way.

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Peace Deal Or Exploitation?

Whether this deal becomes the foundation for a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia is a question yet to be answered. There is always a possibility this deal is merely an effort by Trump to essentially expropriate Ukraine’s wealth and leave the country little to show for it.

Still, this deal is to be binding upon the United States, and so the US will be obliged to respect its terms—including those referencing Ukraine’s own sovereignty and security—not just during President Trump’s term of office but after.

If this is a deal which is done between the United States and Ukraine, then, regardless of the particular merits and demerits of the deal, President Trump will have defined US policy towards Ukraine in terms that are concrete and tangible.

Is this deal a “good deal” for either side? I do not know. Nobody can really knows, not at this time. There are too many pieces which this agreement explicitly concedes still need to be negotiated.

This deal could be the start of a productive bilateral US-Ukraine alliance, or it could collapse into geopolitical chaos and recrimination. There are too many unknowns which could make or break this deal.

Still, it is a tangible step forward in the overall process of negotiations regarding the war in Ukraine. If the deal holds, it presents a foundational pretext for US involvement in any peace arrangement that might ultimately be negotiated for both Russia and Ukraine.

Moreover, it is evidence that, despite Donald Trump’s occasionally incontinent rhetoric about Ukraine, he is both willing and able to negotiate with Ukraine without Russia in the room, just as he has signaled a willingness and ability to negotiate with Russia without Ukraine in the room.

Will this make Putin more amenable to crafting a ceasefire and permanent peace deal? Again, nobody can really know if that will be a consequence of this deal or not. One certainly hopes that will be the case. I certainly pray that is the case; Ukraine and Russia both desperately need to end this bloody and destructive war.

What could produce a bit of diplomatic pressure on Putin is the fact that this is a concluded agreement. While Russia and the US are still dancing around each other figuring out how to sit down and actually negotiate, President Trump has apparently already concluded at least one negotiation with Ukraine. By definition, Ukraine is now the more amenable party to negotiations, and that is not a bad position from which to appeal to EU sympathies for future support, military and otherwise.

The best case scenario is that this agreement does motivate Putin to find a diplomatic off-ramp to the war, while at the same time giving the US something to show for the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that have been sent to Ukraine since the war began. That’s the optimistic outlook.

The pessimistic outlook is that this agreement leaves Ukraine impoverished and vulnerable, and inspires Putin to continue his attempt to conquer the country.

Both outcomes are plausible. Perhaps both outcomes are even probable. Only time will tell which outcome is the actual outcome.

This is the leaked draft of the “minerals deal” between the United States and Ukraine, reprinted in full as reported in The Kyiv Independent on February 26, 2025. It is being reprinted here for reference independent of any commentary, opinion, or analysis.

BILATERAL AGREEMENT ESTABLISHING TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR A RECONSTRUCTION INVESTMENT FUND

WHEREAS the United States of America has provided significant financial and material support to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022;

WHEREAS the American people desire to invest alongside Ukraine in a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine;

WHEREAS the United States of America and Ukraine desire a lasting peace in Ukraine and a durable partnership between their two peoples and governments;

WHEREAS the United States of America and Ukraine recognize the contribution that Ukraine has made to strengthening international peace and security by voluntarily abandoning the world's third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons;

WHEREAS the United States of America and Ukraine wish to ensure that those States and other persons that have acted adversely to Ukraine in the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine following a lasting peace;

NOW, THEREFORE, the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine (each, a “Participant”) hereby enter into this Bilateral Agreement Establishing Terms and Conditions for a Reconstruction Investment Fund to deepen the partnership between the United States of America and Ukraine, as set forth herein.

1. The Governments of Ukraine and the United States of America, with the aim of achieving lasting peace in Ukraine, intend to establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund (Fund), partnering in the Fund through joint ownership, to be further defined in the Fund Agreement. Joint ownership will take into consideration the actual contributions of the Participants as defined in Sections 3 and 4. The Fund will be jointly managed by representatives of the Government of Ukraine and the Government of the United States of America. More detailed terms pertaining to the Fund’s governance and operation will be set forth in a subsequent agreement (the Fund Agreement) to be negotiated promptly after the conclusion of this Bilateral Agreement. The maximum percentage of ownership of the Fund’s equity and financial interests to be held by the Government of the United States of America and the decision-making authority of the representatives of the Government of the United States of America will be to the extent permissible under applicable United States laws.
   
   Neither Participant will sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of, directly or indirectly, any portion of its interest in the Fund without the prior written consent of the other Participant.
   

2. The Fund will collect and reinvest revenues contributed to the Fund, minus expenses incurred by the Fund, and will earn income from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets (whether owned directly or indirectly by the Ukrainian Government), as defined in Section 3.
   

3. The Government of Ukraine will contribute to the Fund 50 percent of all revenues earned from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets (whether owned directly or indirectly by the Ukrainian Government), defined as deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials, and other infrastructure relevant to natural resource assets (such as liquified natural gas terminals and port infrastructure) as agreed by both Participants, as may be further described in the Fund Agreement. For the avoidance of doubt, such future sources of revenues do not include the current sources of revenues which are already part of the general budget revenues of Ukraine. Timeline, scope and sustainability of contributions will be further defined in the Fund Agreement.
   
   The Fund, in its sole discretion, may credit or return to the Government of Ukraine actual expenses incurred by the newly developed projects from which the Fund receives revenues.
   
   Contributions made to the Fund will be reinvested at least annually in Ukraine to promote the safety, security and prosperity of Ukraine, to be further defined in the Fund Agreement. The Fund Agreement will also provide for future distributions.
   

4. Subject to applicable United States law, the Government of the United States of America will maintain a long-term financial commitment to the development of a stable and economically prosperous Ukraine. Further contributions may be comprised of funds, financial instruments, and other tangible and intangible assets critical for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
   

5. The Fund's investment process will be designed so as to invest in projects in Ukraine and attract investments to increase the development, processing and monetization of all public and private Ukrainian assets including, but not limited to, deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials, infrastructure, ports, and state-owned enterprises as may be further described in the Fund Agreement. The Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine intend that the investment process will lead to opportunities for distribution of additional funds and greater reinvestment, to ensure the sufficient supply of capital for the reconstruction of Ukraine as set out in the Fund Agreement.
   
   The Participants reserve the right to take such action as necessary to protect and maximize the value of their economic interests in the Fund.
   

6. The Fund Agreement will include appropriate representations and warranties, including those necessary to ensure that any obligations the Government of Ukraine may have to third parties, or such obligations that it may undertake in the future, do not sell, convey, transfer pledge, or otherwise encumber the Government of Ukraine’s contributions to the Fund or the assets from which such contributions are derived, or the Fund’s disposition of funds.
   
   In drafting the Fund Agreement, the Participants will strive to avoid conflicts with Ukraine’s obligations under its accession to the European Union or its obligations under arrangements with international financial institutions and other official creditors.
   

7. The Fund Agreement will provide, inter alia, an acknowledgment that both the Fund Agreement and the activities provided for therein are commercial in nature.
   
   The Fund agreement shall be ratified by the Parliament of Ukraine according to the Law of Ukraine "On International Treaties of Ukraine."
   

8. The Fund Agreement will pay particular attention to the control mechanisms that make it impossible to weaken, violate or circumvent sanctions and other restrictive measures.
   

9. The text of the Fund Agreement will be developed without delay by working groups chaired by authorized representatives of the Government of Ukraine and the Government of the United States of America. Contact persons responsible for preparing the Fund Agreement on the basis of this Bilateral Agreement are: from the Government of the United States of America: the Department of the Treasury; from the Government of Ukraine: Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economy.
   

10. This Bilateral Agreement and the Fund Agreement will constitute integral elements of the architecture of bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as concrete steps to establish lasting peace, and to strengthen economic security resilience and reflect the objectives set forth in the preamble to this Bilateral Agreement.
    
    The Government of the United States of America supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace. Participants will seek to identify any necessary steps to protect mutual investments, as defined in the Fund Agreement.
    

11. This Bilateral Agreement is binding and will be implemented by each Participant according to its domestic procedures. The Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine commit to proceed forthwith to negotiate the Fund Agreement.

For all his nationalistic and even jingoistic bluster, Putin’s dogged insistence on ever more war is writing metaphorical checks that Russia is finding increasingly difficult to cash. As the war in Ukraine nears the completion of its third year, eventually Russians will have no choice but to confront the eternal question which hovers over all war: How much blood and treasure can Russia afford to pay?

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By now, the cycle has become disturbingly routine: Ukraine launches a drone strike deep into Russian territory, after which Putin denounces the attack, often punctuating his disapproval with a missile and drone barrage over Ukraine.

The latest attack came on Saturday against high-rise buildings in the Russian city of Kazan, located in the oil-rich Republic of Tartarstan over 600 miles from the Ukraine border and more than 500 miles east of Moscow.

Speaking to the Tartarstan leader on Sunday, Putin vowed—again—a harsh retaliation for the attack.

“Whoever, and however much they try to destroy, they will face many times more destruction themselves and will regret what they are trying to do in our country,” Putin said.

The “whoever” is, of course, Ukraine.

Perversely, as Putin was uttering his usual bombast about the drone attacks, Ukraine carried out another one, this time against the Stalnoy Kon oil terminal in Oryol Oblast, much closer to the front lines in Kursk.

We should bear in mind that the drone strikes are all part of a war which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, ostensibly to execute a “special military operation” which has instead devolved into a largely stalemated and extremely bloody war of attrition.

No matter how one views the geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe, regardless of whether one views the conflict as the product of a militaristic posturing by Putin or reckless and largely corrupt NATO expansion efforts designed to “surround” Russia, the practical consequences of war emerge not from the motives or reasons, but from the choice to go to war. Even as we concede the obvious, that NATO is, first and foremost, an “anti-Russia” military alliance, we must also concede that the decision to invade Ukraine was solely Vladimir Putin’s.

It is scarcely a remarkable observation to note that wars are always costly, and the war in Ukraine has been no exception. Indeed, it was predictable even before Putin ordered his soldiers across the border into Ukraine that this war would be an expensive proposition.

Three years on, this war has been extremely expensive for Russia, and even more wasteful.

Note: I shall be doing a separate examination of the costs of the war on Europe. Suffice to say for now that Europe’s situation in this regard is no better than Russia’s.

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Just how wasteful this war has been for Russia is made immediately obvious when we consider how little the front lines have shifted over the course of 2024.

Russia has suffered absolutely horrific casualty rates over the past year—literally thousands of soldiers every day—yet overall the battle lines in Eastern Ukraine have not shifted that much.

This is where the front lines stood on January 1, 2024:

This is where the front lines stood at the end of last week.

At first glance, one might easily assume that there is no change. A closer view, however, reveals that Russia has advanced somewhat in Eastern Ukraine.

The salient north of Kurakhove is the bulk of what Russia has achieved over the course of the year. For such military gains Russia is estimated to have suffered over 125,000 casualties in just September, October, and November alone. Recently, Russia is reported to have lost as many as 2200 soldiers in a single day, and seems determined to close out 2024 by repeatedly setting new records for most casualties in a single day.

One has to go back to either of the two World Wars of the 20th century to find casualty figures of comparable magnitude.

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If the scale of Russian deaths in the war have resonated with Putin, he appears to hide it well. In a year-end media address, he managed to continue his bravado and bluster against NATO, going so far as issue an open challenge to NATO for a “missile duel.”

In one of the most eyebrow-raising moments of the marathon session in Moscow, Putin claimed Western air-defence systems are incapable of intercepting Russia's new Oreshnik hypersonic missile - and threw down the gauntlet of a duel.

"There is no chance of shooting down these missiles," Putin said.

If the West had any doubts about the missile's capabilities, it could name a target in Kiev protected by all available air-defence weapons which would then be targeted by the Oreshnik, Putin said.

This would be an "experiment, a high-tech duel of the 21st century," according to the Russian leader.

It would then become clear whether Western powers could stop the missile, he said, expressing Russia's readiness to participate.

To be sure, it is quite understandable why Putin would be directing such marks against the NATO powers. While the war itself rages on Ukrainian soil, in geopolitical terms the war has always been a contest between NATO and “the Western Powers” on the one hand, and Russia on the other. That has always been the reality of this conflict, and indeed the military war of attrition in Ukraine has been matched in an economic war of attrition between the EU and Russia, with both sides getting severely battered early on, and having continued to batter each other ever since.

However, Putin seems almost as undeterred by the economic costs of the war as he has been by the human casualties. In the same media address where he challenged NATO to a missile duel, he made the bizarre assertion that Russia is somehow “stronger” for the war.

That is, of course, complete nonsense. War weaken nations. Throughout the entirety of human history war has never made a nation stronger.

Despite the bombastic assertion that Russia was stronger now, Putin nevertheless conceded that inflation was on the rise in Russia, despite the draconian interventions of the Russian Central Bank intended to keep inflation under control.

However, there is no denying that the war in Ukraine has imposed a terrible cost on the Russian economy. A quick glance at the Moscow Stock Exchange over the past few years shows just how much of a beating Russian businesses have taken as a consequence of that war.

By fall of 2022 the MOEX index of Russian-traded stocks had fallen by more than 50% from its pre-war high. While it has recovered somewhat, it is still down by more than 35% from that pre-war high.

The economic pain has been felt across the whole of the Russian economy. After enduring a full year of economic contraction as a result both of the war and of the sanctions imposed by the EU and G7 countries, even the transition to a wartime economy has not sustainably brought the Russian economy to the levels it briefly enjoyed before the war.

Russia’s economy has never been a powerhouse of economic resiliency, and the war has most emphatically not helped in that regard.

While the manufacturing sector has gained—mainly due to the focused output of war materiel—even those gains have been somewhat less than one would expect given the magnitude of the war raging in Ukraine.

Putin’s bluster notwithstanding, Russia has been battered and bruised by the war in Ukraine, and stands to take an even greater battering and bruising the longer the war in Ukraine drags on.

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The cost of the war to the Russian people is easily seen in the wartime inflation that is steadily creeping further and further into the Russian economy.

Again, this is a fairly typical consequence of converting a country’s economy over to a war footing. Massive government expenditures for the implements of war coupled with a relative scarcity of consumer goods almost invariably produces a significant distortion in consumer prices in the form of ever-rising inflation.

While the Russian Central Bank had been successful in preventing hyperinflation initially, over the past eighteen months inflation has steadily returned in Russia.

That inflation is now getting progressively worse.

When the month on month inflation rate doubles, as it did in Russia in November, that is not a good sign. If the trend of rising month on month inflation continues, Russia will very soon find itself in the grip of runaway hyperinflation.

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Perhaps the most dire consequence of the war of attrition in Ukraine has been the damage it has done to the Russian ruble. To borrow a bit of Joe Biden’s bombastic rhetoric about Russia, the ruble really is becoming “rubble”.

What other conclusion can we draw from the fact that the ruble has depreciated against the yuan by some 10% in just the past year alone?

That decline is by far the most devastating for Russia, as China has become Russia’s principal trading partner as a result of sanctions imposed by the EU as a consequence of Putin invading Ukraine.

The ruble is faring somewhat worse against the dollar, having declined some 12% over the same period.

About the only reason the ruble has not declined further against the yuan is likely because the yuan, responding to China’s own economic woes, has fallen roughly 2% against the dollar as well.

However, this is also bad news for Russia, for if trade with Russia, with a wartime nation’s rather voracious appetite for goods, is not helping pull China out of its economic crisis, a question arises as to how long China will be willing to stand beside Russia in the face of opposition from the EU and the US.

Indeed, the war has only served to exacerbate the ruble’s weakness. Since 2019, the ruble has declined some 35% against the yuan, and while a considerable portion of that decline occurred prior to 2022, the ruble is weaker against the yuan now than it was at the start of the war.

Whatever else may be said of the state of the Russian economy, the one thing which may not be realistically said is that the Russian economy is in any way “stronger” as a result of the war.

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Perversely, while the cost of war has been ginormous for Russia, and will continue to be so, putting Russia on a wartime footing means Putin faces another economic challenge when Russia at last does sue for peace.

The economic challenge of peace after war is that of transition, and rarely is that transition gentle or slow. Rather, once the guns fall silent, the demand for more guns, more munitions, and more war production immediately ceases, or very nearly so. At the same time, the production of civilian consumer goods takes time to ramp up again. The result is an inevitable economic “peacetime shock”.

Nominally, the Russian economy has grown as a result of the war.

However, with much of that growth coming in the form of government demand for war materiel, when peace does come, Russia is facing an inevitable significant economic contraction at least as great as the 11% contraction it endured in 2023 during the extended (and therefore painful) transition to wartime footing.

Depending on how the peace takes shape, and to what extent Russia can repair its relations with Europe, Russia may have to endure a contraction in the Russian economy to 2020 levels or even further.

Bear in mind that a post-war economic contraction is not a hypothetical possibility. Rather, it is an established historical reality1. When countries transition from war to peace, an economic contraction is part of the process. That was the case for the United States after the Civil War, as well as WW1 and WW2. It was the case for the United Kingdom after WW1 (the economic situation in Europe after WW2 holds no real comparison as the devastation of the war itself left most of the continent without much in the way of a functioning economy).

Is Putin prepared for that transition, and the economic dislocations that must come as a consequence? There is, of course, no way to know for certain, but it is certain that Putin’s current level of bluster and his desire to project strength both internally and externally shows no indication of even an awareness of such challenges once peace arrives.

Yet as history has shown time and again, the longer war drags on, the greater the cost of transitioning back to peace. The longer Russia remains mired in an attritional war in Ukraine, the greater its cost will be when at last peace comes and the guns fall silent.

War is a costly undertaking, and attritional warfare is especially costly—by every measure such is an horrific shedding of national blood and treasure. War is costing Russia dearly, just as it is costing Ukraine dearly and just as it is costing Europe dearly. War will continue to cost Russia dearly, and even ending the war is going to cost Russia dearly.

Can such costs ever be justified? If one accepts Putin’s rationale that the war is existential for Russia, perhaps. Depicting the war in existential terms removes most other alternatives from the table, including peace. When one frames the choices as war or extinction, questions of cost are largely set aside.

Yet while framing the war in Ukraine as an existential battle for Russia might set aside questions about the cost of the war for Russia, that framing cannot set aside the costs themselves.

Casualties happen in war, existential crisis or no.

Similarly, economic consequences arise from war, existential crisis or no. The pressures of inflation, of scarcity and wartime rationing, and of manpower dislocations arise because of the demands governments make on the nation in order to prosecute a war.

There is a cost to war. There is a cost to ending war. Neither cost can be avoided, and both costs are made greater the longer war is extended.

Putin seems willing to extend the war in Ukraine, at least for now. Yet the longer he does, the more the Russian people will have to pay for that war in Ukraine, and the more the Russian people will have to pay to transition from war to peace once war is concluded.

Somehow, I rather doubt the Russian people are all that enthusiastic about having to pay either for war or for peace—not that Putin is giving them any say in the matter.

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Those are very loaded questions, and as any brief survey of podcasters, corporate media outlets, and YouTube commentators will show, there are as many answers to those questions as there are podcasters, corporate media outlets, and YouTube commentators—and every single one of them is absolutely correct and has the real skinny on what’s “really happening” in Ukraine. Just ask them.

We do not know what the ultimate outcome will be in Ukraine. Wars are murky and messy affairs, and they are neither won nor lost until the shooting ultimately stops.

We do know, however, that Russia’s economy has taken some significant hits recently, enough to raise the possibility that Putin may have considerable incentive to let Donald Trump broker a peace arrangement with Ukraine, simply in order to forestall economic chaos and possible collapse.

As Trump’s ability to secure peace in Ukraine is likely to be an early opportunity for success or failure in his second term of office, it behooves us to look at what is happening on the home front in Russia.

What can the data tell us about the state of Russia’s economy?

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The genesis of this article came about last month, when the Russian ruble went into a precipitous decline against the Chinese yuan.

The ruble had been in decline since August, but November was when things went almost into freefall, such that at one point the ruble was down on the year against the yuan by more than 20%.

This has major ramifications for Russia, as China has take Europe’s place as Russia’s principal trading partner in the wake of sanctions levied in response to the war in Ukraine. 2024 to date has been quite a growth year for Chinese exports to Russia.

China exported around 80 billion yuan worth of goods to Russia in the month of September, a 9% increase from the 73 billion yuan worth of goods it exported the prior month, according to Chinese customs data published on Tuesday. That's larger than the increase recorded over the last several months, with Chinese exports to Russia rising 3% in August and 1% in July.

In an ominous sign for Russia, however, Chinese imports from Russia have fallen.

China's imports from Russia, however, fell 4.3% last month from a year earlier, narrowing from the decline of 9.2% in September, as payment issues disrupted trade transactions.

In a talk with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko last month, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated China and Russia's strong relations, that were not affected by "changes in the international situation".

The driving force behind most of the payment hurdles dirsupting Sino-Russian commerce have actually been the increasingly stringent financial sanctions being levied over the summer by the US and the EU in efforts to disrupt Russia’s ability to purchase raw materials to sustain its war production.

In particular, the US targeted Chinese firms doing business with Russia.

The sanctions target third party firms and entities, including dozens of suppliers of electronics in China, as well as those in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. The action stops short of imposing secondary sanctions on banks in China and other countries where Treasury has warned that dealings with Russian entities could cut institutions off from dollar access.

But the Treasury did say it was modifying the sanctions on previously targeted Russian banks, including VTB and Sberbank, to include branches and subsidiaries in China, India, Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan and other locations.

Pressure came to a maximum when the US applied fresh sanctions to Gazprombank, the Russian banking concern that foreign countries use to process their payments when purchasing natural gas from Gazprom.

The move effectively kicks Gazprombank - one of Russia's largest banks - out of the U.S. banking system, bans their trade with Americans and freezes their U.S. assets.

Gazprombank is partially owned by Kremlin-owned gas company Gazprom (GAZP.MM). Since Russia's invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has been urging the U.S. to impose more sanctions on the bank, which receives payments for natural gas from Gazprom's customers in Europe.

The fresh sanctions come days after the Biden administration allowed Kyiv to use U.S. ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory. On Tuesday, Ukraine fired the weapons, the longest range missiles Washington has supplied for such attacks on Russia, on the war's 1,000th day.

That these sanctions had an impact is immediately apparent just from the decline in the ruble against the Yuan.

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While the ruble was in freefall against the yuan for about a day or so, it did manage to stablize right before thanksgiving, establishing a floor price against the yuan and even rebounding slightly.

As of this writing the ruble was holding steady at 1 ruble being worth 0.0670769 yuan.

Unsurprisingly, the ruble stabilized against the dollar as well (the yuan and the dollar frequently mirror each other when tracked against third party currencies).

After managing to remain above the rate of 100 rubles to the dollar since the war begin, the ruble has found a new stable threshold (as of this writing) against the dollar at 1 ruble to 0.00926072 dollars.

In an encouraging sign for Russia, this stability against the dollar has come even as the yuan has spent the week showing some increased volatility against the dollar.

While the ruble’s 16% decline on the year against the yuan (as of this writing) is a major setback for the Russian currency, the stabilization means the Russian economy at least is not getting any worse!

Arguably, this could be seen as something a win for Russia, because while the Russian economy has been taking a beating, Russian forces have been making headway in eastern Ukraine, taking a significant bit of territory around the city of Kurakhove during the month of November.

However, there are still problems within the Russian economy and merely stabilizing means they have not yet gone away—and may not go away.

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Aside from the currency crisis, the most notable outward sign of trouble for the Russian economy is that the Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX) has declined largely as the ruble as declined since August.

Both the ruble-denominated IMOEX index and the dollar-denominated RTS Index are in deep “bear” territory, having declined more than 20%.

While a country’s economy is more than just its stock market, declines of this magnitude for Russian firms is a fairly dramatic illustration of the uncertainties at play in the Russian economy. There are very few scenarios where a decline in the stock market of this magnitude is not an indication of a brewing economic crisis.

More crucially, however, is the problem of inflation.

Theoretically, inflation is under control, as Russia’s official inflation rate is at 8.5%, and the official food price inflation rate is at 9%.

However, the prices for many foodstuffs have soared far higher than that in 2024.

The price of a block of butter has risen by 25.7% since December, according to the state statistics service.

Reuters reporters found shopping bills showed the price of a pack of "Brest-Litovsk" high-grade butter in Moscow has risen by 34% since the start of the year to 239.96 roubles ($2.47).

"The Armageddon with butter is escalating; we wouldn't be surprised if butter repeats last year's situation with eggs," economists on Russia's popular MMI Telegram channel warned, referring to an earlier spike in egg prices which alarmed consumers.

The steep price rise has prompted a spate of butter thefts at some supermarkets, according to Russian media, and some retailers have started putting individual blocks of butter inside plastic containers to deter shoplifting.

While prices do vary within any inflation metric, for the price of a staple such as butter to be that far outside the range of the “official” inflation rate invites suspicion that Rosstat—the Russian statistics bureau analogous to the BLS and BEA here in the United States—is getting a bit “creative” with the data. I certainly am quite willing to entertain such ideas when the BLS and BEA data here in the United States looks a little sketchy when it gets reported!

At a minimum, Russia is experiencing some significant price dislocations. One does not need a PhD in economics to realize that there are numerous warning signs indicating the Russian economy is heading into some very rough waters.

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There is very little mystery as to what is driving up inflation in Russia: ultimately, it’s Putin’s war in Ukraine. More precisely, Russia having converted over to a wartime economy, and Putin printing rubles at an accelerated pace, is experiencing inflation in the fashion that most wartime economies have throughout history. This is the historical norm when the money supply is expanded rapidly, and Putin has been expanding the supply of rubles for quite some time, going back years.

If we index the money supply data from the Russian Central Bank (RCB), we can see just how much the money supply has grown.

The quantity of rubles in circulation has increased more than 347% since 2011, but the M1 money supply aggregate has increase 476% and the M2 aggregate by 564%.

A sign of the demands from Russia’s war machine, the pace of M2 increase rose again starting in 2023, even as the M1 and M0 metrics began to stabilize and flatten out.

By comparison, the Federal Reserve has been positively restrained with the US money supply since 2022.

This is Putin’s problem in a nutshell: how to prevent hyperinflation while continuing to print (and spend) rubles at ever increasing rates?

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To be clear, the ruble at least for now has stabilized. Russia is not facing complete currency collapse, which means its economy will be able to soldier on for at least a little while longer.

However, The ruble has lost 16% of its value against the yuan in just a few short months—a tremendous devaluation by any measure.

Food prices are reflecting a level of inflation that more or less matches that rapid money supply growth.

The Moscow stock market is reflecting a drop in value that again seems proportionate to the loss of currency value, and the decline broadly matches when the ruble began its significant decline in August.

These are signs of real problems within the economy, and, absent a recovery in both the currency and the stock market, there is no reason to anticipate they are going away any time soon.

Yet Russia is hanging on, for now, economically speaking. Things are not on the brink of collapse, and Putin’s back does not appear to be against any wall. Obviously that would change if the currency declined much further, and if inflation spun out of control despite the RCB’s efforts to contain it.

We can also fairly state that, if circumstances persist as they are as of this writing, Putin’s capacity to “win” in Ukraine may prove to become increasingly elusive, as a deteriorating economy will make it that much more difficult for Russia to mount the final blow that would finally knock Ukraine out of the war.

Yet such challenges are far from saying that Putin is “losing” the war in Ukraine, or even that he is likely to lose. If Russia cannot deliver a knockout blow, then the outcome of the war quickly reduces to who is able to last the longest militarily and economically in the horrific war of attrition that has become Europe’s most brutal conflict since WW2.

Is Vladimir Putin “winning” in Ukraine? Ultimately, that depends on your definition of “winning”. Personally, unless Donald Trump is successful at getting the two sides to the negotiating table and crafting a lasting peace, I can’t see applying “winning” to the outcomes for either side. Neither Russia nor Ukraine are likely to emerge from this war in good shape by any measure.

Merely being the last one standing in a fight is just not enough to qualify as “victory” in my book.

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Certainly there are those who believe Ukraine’s use of the United States’ Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to attack a weapons depot in the Bryansk Oblast of Russia could be the opening salvo of a widening Ukrainian conflict.

On the night of November 19, 2024, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in cooperation with other components of the Defense Forces, inflicted fire damage to the arsenal of 1046 of the logistics center near the city of Karachev, Bryansk region of the russian federation.

As of 02.30 a.m., 12 secondary explosions and a detonation in the area of the target were recorded.

The defeat of ammunition depots for the army of the Russian occupiers will continue to stop the armed aggression of the russian federation against Ukraine.

Next will be...

Glory to Ukraine!

This comes almost immediately on the heels of Joe Biden authorizing such long range strikes into Russia using the ATACMS munitions—one does not have to be any sort of military genius to surmise Ukraine has been waiting for the US to greenlight such attacks.

Is this an escalation of US involvement in Ukraine? To a degree, yes. US made weapons are being used to attack Russia directly—an offensive rather than defensive role.

How much more than that is it? Arguably, not a lot more.

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I want to reiterate my overall stance on the war in Ukraine: I want it to end, and end quickly. I want there to be a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia. I want the killing and the dying to stop.

As for what will constitute a “lasting peace” between Russia and Ukraine, that is a question they will have to sort for themselves. Other than facilitating negotiations, other countries should not involve themselves in deciding Ukraine’s future.

Biden’s authorizing Ukraine to attack targets on Russian soil using ATACMS certainly does not look like the sort of decision that is likely to bring about peace sooner rather than later. Indeed, the corporate media is presenting Biden’s decision as a deliberate tit-for-tat escalation following reports of North Korean forces joining Russia’s invasion force.

The decision allowing Ukraine to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, for attacks farther into Russia comes as thousands of North Korean troops have been sent into a region along Ukraine’s northern border to help Russia retake ground and as President-elect Donald Trump has said he would bring about a swift end to the war, expressing skepticism over continued support by the United States.

However, we should realize that extending a grinding war of attrition in Ukraine has always been the centerpiece of NATO’s strategy for that war. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said as much very early on during a visit to Kyiv.

That message was delivered most clearly on Monday, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters after a trip to Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv that “we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

While the rhetoric has been couched in terms of Ukraine “winning” the war, the actions have been far more problematic. We should remember that in the fall of 2022, the US military leadership claimed Ukraine did not even need the ATACMS munitions.

"It's our assessment that they don't currently require ATACMS to service targets that are directly relevant to the current fight," Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters in late-August.

Last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin intimated the US position hasn't shifted. "The HIMARS, using the GMLRS rockets, have been extraordinary in terms of enabling the Ukrainians to service the targets that they need to service inside of Ukraine," Austin said in Prague on Friday, making no mention of ATACMS.

Note Colin Kahl’s choice of words: “current fight.”

The Pentagon was, apparently, mostly interested in addressing the immediate tactical needs of the Ukrainian military—exactly the approach one would take to prolong a war of attrition with Russia, which Lloyd Austin had already confirmed was what NATO wanted in Ukraine.

Not until the fall of 2023 did Joe Biden and his handlers approve ATACMS deliveries to Ukraine.

Biden made the pledge to Zelenskyy during the Ukrainian leader’s visit to the White House on Thursday, fulfilling a long-held wish by Kyiv, according to the officials who like others for this story were granted anonymity to speak about private conversations.

The Army Tactical Missile Systems will likely be delivered to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The White House declined to comment on the matter

Now, one year after that, Biden greenlights Ukraine using the ATACMS munitions to attack targets inside Russia.

While this escalation might conveniently use the excuse of North Korean soldiers aiding Russia on the battlefield as an excuse, the incrementalism that has been on display in US aid to Ukraine from the beginning suggests that Biden’s authorization was inevitable. Any excuse would have served; North Korea’s sending forces to fight alongside Russia was merely the convenient excuse du jour.

Remember, a Ukrainian victory has only been a superficial objective to the military thinkers in the Pentagon. For them, the larger and more meaningful objective has always been to “attrit” Russia’s miiltary, and effectively end it as a fighting force.

Even the corporate media propaganda in favor of aid to Ukraine has made “breaking” Russia one of the major justifications.

Russia has been badly bloodied. Of its prewar army, perhaps a quarter of its troops were killed or wounded in its initial attacks on Ukraine. A hastily mobilized force of men swept up in a press-ganging effort is also suffering casualties at a horrific rate. But the losses have not yet broken the Russian army or the determination of the Putin regime in Moscow. Indeed, Ukrainian sources report that a new mobilization is being prepared with the aim of more than doubling the size of the Russian military to a total force of as many as 2 million personnel.

From the very beginning, NATO’s strategy for Ukraine can be summarized thus: NATO provides the cannons, and Ukraine provides the cannon fodder. So long as Ukraine is killing Russian soldiers, NATO is seeing its stated objectives met.

An actual victory for Ukraine has never been a priority for NATO.

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If Biden is engaged in a tit-for-tat escalation with Russia (and he is), does that mean that Russia is going to do something of its own to take the war’s intensity up a notch?

Theoretically, yes. That has been the tempo of the war all along. Whenever Ukraine has made a notable move to change the dynamic of the war, Russia has responded, often with massive missile barrages targeting Ukraine’s civilian population.

As evidence by the fact that the war is ongoing, neither Putin’s escalations nor his bellicose rhetoric have had the presumptively desired effect of dissuading NATO from supporting Ukraine further.

Thus Putin from time to time rattles his nuclear saber which he has just done by revising Russia’ nuclear doctrine.

A number of observers view Putin’s signing of the revised doctrine to be in response to Ukraine’s inaugural use of ATACMS.

That confirmation of a lowering of Russia's threshold for the use of nuclear weapons emerged on the same day Moscow says Ukraine has fired US ballistic missiles against Russian territory for the first time is surely no coincidence.

This comes on top of Putin’s rhetoric from September 12 where he stated that Ukrainian use of long-range munitions would mean that NATO was actually at war with Russia.

Russian state media has promoted President Vladimir Putin’s remarks on the possibility of British and American-supplied weapons striking deep into Russia, presumably to take out airbases where strikes against Ukraine are launched, presently well out of Kyiv’s reach. The President of the Russian Federation said such strikes would “change the very nature of the conflict” and would “mean that NATO countries, the U.S., European countries, are at war with Russia.”

Putin’s spokesman followed up on Friday, asserting that the message was “extremely clear, unambiguous and admits of no dual interpretations”, and had been “no doubt” received by its intended audience, the leadership of NATO states.

Quite conceivably, Putin’s revising the nuclear doctrine is a preparatory step towards making good on that threat.

Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov took to Telegram in the wake of the Ukraine attack on Bryansk to repeat Putin’s September warning.

Peskov – about the timing of the end of the SVO: When it all began, it began against the Kiev regime. And now it continues as a war between Russia and NATO. That’s why it took a little more time and will last a little longer. I don’t think it’s possible to answer the question when the SVO can end when it might come to an end. But the only thing I can tell you is will end as soon as we achieve our goals.

At a minimum, then we must consider the possibility that Putin is not bluffing by revising Russia’s nuclear doctrine to allow for a nuclear response to a non-nuclear attack.

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Yet how much of an escalation is the use of ATACMS?

At the theater level, it could be a significant shift in battlefield dynamics. The use of ATACMS, which has a range of up to 300 kilometers, has the potential to bring most of Russia’s rear staging areas under direct missile attack1.

If ATACMS were used on the eastern front in Ukraine, Russia’s main supply hubs around Rostov-On-Don potentially come under attack.

This would not be a complete “game changer”, but it could force Russia to reposition supply depots and staging areas farther back from the front lines, and that added distance would pose a complication for Russia’s logistics efforts. At a minimum it would slow down the pace of Russia reinforcement of the front line. It could also compel Russia to redeploy air assets farther back.

These would not by themselves lead to a collapse of the Russian front lines, but the added stresses could prove impactful in slowing or stopping Russian advances in the east.

Remember, keeping the attrition going is what NATO wants. Biden giving Ukraine authorization to attack targets inside Russia with ATACMS at this juncture appears to be the sort of calibrated and “managed” escalation intended to do just that.

Beyond the battlefield, however, as an escalation it does not change very much. Ukraine has mounted successful drone attacks deep inside Russia, and has even targeted portions of Russia’s nuclear deterrent force as early as the winter of 2022.

Indeed, Ukraine’s success with its drone attacks has since 2022 been a constant reminder that Russia’s strategic infrastructure is exposed and vulnerable in several regards—not the least of which is Russia’s all-important energy infrastructure.

Perhaps more crucially, however, is the sobering reality that Putin’s options for escalation are increasingly limited. As it stands, one consequence of Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk is that very little of Ukraine’s border with Russia is not already highly militarized.

The rest of the border is fundamentally one long battlefield.

Putin has already done massive missile strikes across the whole of Ukraine. As an escalation that is not going to go very far.

Indeed, Putin’s lack of escalation options may be one reason why the financial markets largely shrugged off news of the ATACMS strike.

Despite opening down significantly, all the major indices quickly recovered, with only the Dow posting a loss on the day.

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Does this mean that Putin is powerless to do anything to respond to Ukraine’s newfound long-range capacity?

There’s always the nuclear option. That is not a threat to be taken lightly. Indeed, no less a military mind than Lieutenant General (Ret) Mike Flynn takes it so seriously he feels that Biden should be impeached for having authorized the ATACMS use against Russian territory.

First, Vice President Harris and the Biden Cabinet must invoke the 25^th Amendment, and remove Biden as President.  Biden is sleep-walking us into a hot war with Russia without a Congressional Declaration of War.  If he lives past January 20, Biden will take the position he took with Special Counsel Hur who nine months ago declared Biden could not be held responsible for crimes, as he was on old man with a poor memory.  It’s past time to put Kamala in the Oval Office — then we will know the name of the person in charge — someone who was actually elected to office.  And she would be a person who could be held accountable for what disaster might befall the nation.   Bearing that type of responsibility might force Harris to act responsibly.  No longer would decisions be made by Unknown and Unidentified Deep State Operatives who would scatter like roaches should a crisis occur.

Second, at the same time as we hope the Democrats will act, the duty also falls on the current House of Representatives to impeach Biden now for endangering the nation by taking steps that constitute acts of war without a Declaration of War — a power the Constitution gives only to Congress. The indictment should then go immediately to the Senate for trial and removal.  President Trump was impeached after he (supposedly) lost the 2020 election.  What’s good for the goose. 

Third, incoming officials in the Trump Administration need to make contact with President Putin and his staff to de-escalate the situation as best as can be done.  This is exactly what I was trying to do in my conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in January 2017.  The same Deep State which intercepted my call and leaked it to the Press will do so again, because the Deep State is on the ropes and are desperate.  No man who fears going to prison has the moral authority to lead America at this perilous time.

To be sure, the potential for a nuclear response from Putin is a significant threat.

However, that threat has been on the table since Putin invaded Ukraine.

Moreover, since the war began, in addition to considerable propaganda about the importance of defending Ukraine, the media has been replete with reports and rumors of significant Russian troop formations. During the summer of 2023, there was considerable reporting of 100,000 troops massed near Kharkiv for an imminent offensive…which never materialized.

While reliable estimates of Russia’s actual casualties are all but impossible, it seems all but certain that Russia has seen the destruction of a considerable amount of manpower and material—a level of destruction that likely was the catalyst for Putin seeking North Korean forces to join the invasion force in Ukraine.

Addtionally, there’s a problem for Putin in actually using the nuclear threat: where would he strike?

There are no good targets in Ukraine, except possibly Kyiv itself. Every other target Putin might consider lies within NATO—and a nuclear attack on NATO is sure to bring on a nuclear reprisal.

This is not to say that Putin would not order a nuclear strike somewhere in Europe. However, there are no plausible targets that do not end in a worse outcome for Russia.

Indeed, Putin’s dilemma is that there are few options to the current stalemate in eastern Ukraine that do not end in a worse outcome for Russia.

Even if Ukraine were to agree to peace terms with Russia today, with Russia keeping the territories it already has, the end result is that its border with Ukraine will have expanded by several hundred kilometers—several hundred kilometers of border which Russia will very likely have to fortify and defend, as Ukraine at some point might want those territories back. Putin would be looking at maintaining a sizable force in eastern Ukraine for the foreseeable future just to dissuade Ukraine from attempting to retake its lost territories a couple years from now.

If Putin were to return the captured territory, how he would navigate the public backlash that would almost certainly erupt, given the number of Russian dead and wounded in the war.

Then there is the challenge of returning the economy back to a peacetime state. Russia struggled to get its economy onto a wartime footing. Russia will struggle to return its economy to peacetime production. There would be no “peace dividend” for Russia, but there will very likely be a surge of inflation and some very uncertain times for the Russian ruble. That would not bode well for Putin, especially coming on the heels of an undeniably ruinous war.

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Perversely, Putin and Russia are in a position right now where the current stalemate is the best outcome for the Kremlin.

The war in Ukraine is propping of the Russian economy. The war provides at least an identifiable reason for keeping recruiting levels high and expanding the army. The war is keeping NATO and the EU off balance, with the EU locked in a war of economic attrition even as Ukraine is locked with Russia in a war of military attrition. Peace would give the EU a chance to recover economically and NATO a chance to re-arm militarily.

None of the players can sustain this war indefinitely. Russia can’t, Ukraine can’t, the EU/NATO can’t.

Eventually one of them is going to falter, with Russia or the EU/NATO gaining the upper hand. Every one of the players is gambling they are not going to be the one to falter first.

Until one of them does falter, the choice that is being made is to keep playing the game as is. The status quo of attritional warfare is where Russia, Ukraine, and the EU/NATO are choosing to be.

The good news is that means World War Three is not right around the corner.

The bad news is that the war in Ukraine will continue for some time yet. God help the Ukrainian people who have to try to live through it.

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The Russian oil-export machine funding the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is finally getting some grit in its gears.

Indian oil refiners — Moscow’s second-biggest customers after China since the 2022 invasion — will no longer accept tankers owned by state-run Sovcomflot PJSC because of the risk posed by sanctions.

It only took more than two years to work, but, so the narrative goes, the sanctions are actually now starting to make a difference.

Or are they?

Does the data really bear that out?

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Readers will recall that, this time last year, I was not at all optimistic about the state of the Russian economy.

Russia is already paying a heavy economic price for a year of war, and will continue to pay a heavy price. Yet Russia’s contracting economy—and corresponding declines in hydrocarbon production—means that, long term, at least a portion of that price will be paid by the larger global economy.

There was reason to be pessimistic at the time, even though the oil price cap regime implemented by the EU and G7 countries fell apart in March of last year.

While the price cap did eventually fail, its initial impact was significant on the Russian economy. Certainly Russian industrial output and manufacturing struggled to adjust to a Russian wartime economy for most of 2022, as illustrated by Russia’s industrial production and PMI data.

This was made even more apparent in the fall of 2022, when Russia’s budget deficits came to the fore during legislative debates over the governments budget.

However, as the saying goes, “that was then, this is now.”

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As was plain even last year, while the Russian economy was bowed by the sanctions regime imposed since Putin opted to invade Ukraine, it did not break and it did not collapse.

Indeed, when we look at the IEA data, we see that Russia’s oil production largely stabilized in 2023.

The reduced production levels were as much an effort alongside Saudi Arabia to boost the price of oil as they were a response to the sanctions regime.

In short, 2023 was the year Russia began adapting to the sanctions regime, which it seems to have largely done. The widening and than narrowing of the discount on Urals crude shows that the winter of 2022-2023 was a low point for Russian oil prices—and thus Russian oil revenues—and since then there has been a considerable narrowing of that discount.

Indeed, when we look at all the Russian oil blends, their prices have been coming back into alignment with the global benchmark Brent crude prices.

These are not price movements indicative of Russia having difficulty selling its oil abroad.

How, then, does the corporate media narrative on Russia conclude that the oil sanctions are finally starting to bite?

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One report driving this narrative is that Russia is having to store its refined diesel fuel increasingly offshore, indicating that Russia lacks customers for its diesel and refined products.

An average of 6.2 million barrels of diesel had been floating in the 10 days to March 17, according to data from Kpler, an analytics firm. That’s the highest the measure’s been since at least 2017.

The recent buildup easily surpasses what was seen in the pandemic and even beats levels seen in 2023, when sanctions banning shipments into the European Union came into force.

We must note that US spot prices for diesel have been trending up since last fall, and especially since the first of the year.

The apparent diesel glut is, so the reporting goes, even more of a mystery given how Ukraine has been targeting drone strikes on oil refineries of late. With refineries being damaged considerably of late, Russia certainly is not likely to be overproducing diesel fuel and other refined products. The natural conclusion to be drawn, or so it seems, is that Russia is simply not having any luck selling its diesel fuel and refined products.

Russia’s lack of diesel customers comes on top of the news report that India is not buying Russian oil above the price cap any more, for fear of sanctions imposed by Congress.

Since October, the US has designated 40 individual Russian oil tankers. Four of the more recently targeted ones are continuing to make deliveries, but no sanctioned ship has collected a cargo since being named by the US Treasury, tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Now, an increasingly tough trading environment has delivered a powerful symbolic blow to the Kremlin as India — a stalwart commercial ally throughout war — shuns its fleet. At the same time, Ukraine has started blowing up Russian oil refineries, though it’s not clear how much support for the strategy it enjoys in Washington.

“We’re definitely seeing stepped up US sanctions pressure on both Russian crude and on exports,” said Greg Brew, an analyst at Eurasia Group in New York. “It comes at a time when the US is struggling to send more aid to Ukraine, when Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield are starting to decline, and when Russia appears to be gaining the upper hand.”

However, closer inspection of the reporting reveals that India is not refusing to buy Russian oil, but is instead refusing shipments of oil delivered by specific tankers and tanker fleets explicitly under US and/or EU sanctions.

All of India’s refiners are now refusing to take Russian crude carried on PJSC Sovcomflot tankers due to US sanctions, further complicating the trade that has flourished since the invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

Private and state-run processors including the biggest — Indian Oil Corp. — have stopped taking cargoes if they’re on Sovcomflot tankers, said people familiar with the matter. Refiners are scrutinizing the ownership of each ship to make sure they’re not affiliated with the company, or other sanctioned groups, they added, asking not to be named because the information is private.

India is still willing to buy Russian oil, it just wants the tankers delivering the oil to have “clean” registration information and documentation showing the diesel oil was purchased under the pricing regime.

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However, if Russia is losing oil customers, it certainly is not losing oil price. Indeed, at the end of January Urals crude largely erased the deep discounts from Brent Crude.

Lack of oil sales would drive the price of Urals Blend down, and likely would widen the discount to Brent Crude. That has not happened.

Ultimately, in terms of these news reports representing a serious economic reversal for Russia’s oil-export economy, the data is unclear. An accumulation of diesel fuel stored off shore in tankers is not a positive sign for an economy that thrives on energy exports, but neither is it a sign of imminent economic collapse. That Russia is having to constantly find new tankers and new tanker fleets to ship oil is obviously the mother of all logistics challenges, but even that is not is arguably not having that much of an effect—if that were seriously impacting oil sales the discount to Brent would be increasing, not all but disappearing as it has since late January.

The diesel glut and the difficulties in delivering oil to India are undoubtedly having an effect on Russia’s oil economy, yet at the same time Russia has been having to adapt to the sanctions regime for over two years now. If the sanctions have not brought Russia’s economy to its knees by now it is highly unlikely that they will.

Ultimately, the narrative that sanctions are at last starting to “gum up the works” of Russia’s energy economy is mostly wishful thinking with just a few facts providing the connective tissue for that narrative. Russia’s economy did suffer because of the sanctions, but in 2022 and a little bit in 2023, not so much now in 2024.

Are the sanctions “finally” working against Russia? Looking at the data over the past two years, the conclusion has to be that the sanctions had their greatest effect early on, but that Russia weathered that storm and now the sanctions are little more than an additional expense item.

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At least 40 people were killed and more than 100 were injured after armed attackers opened fire inside a popular concert venue complex near Moscow, according to preliminary information from the Federal Security Service in Russia, state media TASS reported.

Meanwhile, Russia 24 reports the roof of the Crocus City Hall concert venue, where the attack unfolded, has partially collapsed.

According to initial reports, three men in camoflauge attacked the concert venue with automatic weapons and incendiary devices.

RIA Novosti reported the three men “opened fire with automatic weapons” and “threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire” in the concert hall.

Somewhat predictably, and perhaps even understandably, while the Kremlin avoided making any official accusations, several lawmakers were quick to accuse Ukraine of being behind the attack.

The Kremlin hasn’t blamed anyone for the attack, but some Russian lawmakers were quick to accuse Ukraine of being behind it. Hours before the attack, the Russian military launched a sweeping barrage on Ukraine’s power system, crippling the country’s biggest hydroelectric plant and other energy facilities and leaving more than a million people without electricity.

After more than two years of brutal and bloody war in Ukraine, it takes no great leap of imagination to understand how Ukraine might be tempted to bring that war home to Russia in this fashion.

However, just hours after the attack, the resurgent terror group ISIS publicly claimed responsibility for the attack.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert venue complex near Moscow Friday that left at least 40 dead and more than 100 wounded after assailants stormed the venue with guns and incendiary devices.

The terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram on Friday. The group did not provide evidence to support the claim.

Aside from this being an unexpected display of new power and capability by ISIS, however, there is very little that is surprising about this. In the aftermath of the Second Chechen War, Russia was on several occasions home to terror attacks led by the mostly Muslim Chechens—Moscow’s relationship with Russia’s many ethnic minorities historically is anything but peaceful.

However, while this attack confirms that ISIS is indeed growing both in power and in reach, we must once again ponder the extent to which Russian internal security is being degraded by the war in Ukraine.

This question came to the fore last September, when Russian peacekeeping efforts in Armenia and Azerbaijan collapsed completely, allowing Muslim-majority Azerbaijan to overrun the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh literally in a single day.

Russia certainly is not the power broker here, particularly as there do not appear to be any consequences accruing to Azerbaijan for the deaths of Russian peacekeepers (who almost certainly were killed by Azerbaijani shelling).

Intriguingly, neither is the US or the EU. The US-Armenian peacekeeping exercises were hardly a secret, and it is difficult to ascribe timing of the Azerbaijani attack as mere coincidence. While Azerbaijan is far from being any sort of global power, in the Caucasus they appear to have concluded they are the power in the region, and they are proceeding to exert hegemonic influence over the region.

At the moment, no one is telling Azerbaijan they cannot do that. Russia certainly is not telling Azerbaijan they cannot do that.

Yet on paper Russia has far more military assets than both Armenia and Azerbaijan combined. All things being equal, Russia should have more than enough military muscle to compel everyone in the Caucasus to play nice with each other.

Of course, all things are never equal, and the most obvious source of inequality for the Russian military is the war in Ukraine—a war Putin initiated in large measure to secure Russia’s south European flank.

Russian weakness in the Caucusus came front and center yet again just six weeks later, in the aftermath of the Hamas October 7th attacks on Israel, when anti-Israel riots broke out in Dagestan.

Is the unrest in Dagestan unleashed by events in Gaza a further sign of Russian weakness and lack of control in the region?

At a minimum, the unrest poses a challenge for Russia, for if any unrest continues in Dagestan, Putin might have to use scarce military resources to restore order, lest the unrest metastasize into an uprising against Moscow, possibly fomented by majority Muslim Azerbaijan which would definitely benefit from a weaker Russia in the region.

Is this ISIS attack on Moscow yet another indication of deteriorating Russian security inside Russia?

ISIS enmity towards Russia actually goes back some years, as aiding Syria against the ISIS “caliphate” was the pretext for Russian troop involvement in Syria’s civil war.

Part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for dispatching troops to Syria and elsewhere was to help the regime of its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, in the fight against ISIS. Iran, too, has claimed to be fighting terrorist groups in the Middle East even as the U.S. charges that its own military explicitly backs militant groups such as Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria, Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Gaza-based Hamas and others.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that ISIS would want to attack Moscow—and in fact has attempted multiple prior attacks, only to be thwarted at the last minute.

The rapidly growing threat posed by the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, the jihadi terrorist group’s Afghanistan affiliate better known as ISIS-K, has linked the U.S. with some of its most bitter enemies, including Russia, Iran and even Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban regime. Each of those actors has been targeted by either direct, deadly attacks from ISIS-K or, in Moscow’s case, seems to have narrowly avoided disaster on multiple occasions.

Just earlier this month, Russian state media reported that it had stopped an ISIS attack on a Moscow synagogue.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it prevented an attack on a synagogue in Moscow that was plotted by an Islamic State cell, Russian state news agencies reported.

FSB said that the members of the organization had been planning "to commit a terrorist act against one of the Jewish religious institutions in Moscow", the RIA news agency quoted the report as saying.

The attackers opened fire during the attempted arrest and were "neutralized by return fire", the FSB said.

It would seem today was the day the FSB did not get quite so lucky, and ISIS got extremely lucky.

Whether this terror attack by ISIS is indeed and indicator of deteriorating Russian power or not, it is an indicator of the increasingly complex security situation in which Russia finds itself. Having lost control over the Caucasus in the wake of Azerbaijan’s takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia is now faced with a growing terror threat from ISIS, the group which had drawn Russian forces into Syria when the ISIS “caliphate” first formed. These security concerns come on top of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, and Ukraine’s growing ability to target Russian infrastructure, launching a drone strike against oil refineries as much as 800 kilometers inside Russia just last week.

One Ukrainian drone struck and set ablaze an oil refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region, according to regional governor Gleb Nikitin. That region is located some about 775 kilometres from the Ukraine border.

Between increasingly sophisticated Ukrainian drones and ISIS growing terror potentials, Russia’s Federal Security Service could be in for a very busy time over the coming months and even years.

These internal security concerns are challenges Putin must address even as he labors to find a pathway to victory in Ukraine—while Russia has a clear advantage in arms and materiel, Russia has yet to achieve a major breakthrough along the front lines in Eastern Ukraine.

The more resources Russia must dedicate towards addressing terrorism and security concerns inside Russia, the fewer resources are available for use in pushing forward in Ukraine. Alternatively, if Putin concentrates all his resources on winning the war in Ukraine, he risks leaving Russia vulnerable to more ISIS attacks and more Ukrainian drone attacks.

While one successful terror strike by ISIS is not going to topple Putin or collapse his latter-day Russian Empire, ISIS’ successful attack in Moscow just as Putin “won” re-election and another six years in the Kremlin highlights just how multidimensional Russia’s security concerns really are.

2024 is going to be a very interesting time for Vladimir Putin!

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The riot, at an airport in the regional capital of Makhachkala 66 miles (107 km) from Derbent, saw hundreds of Dagestanis, mostly young men, rampage through the terminal building and onto the tarmac hunting for Israeli citizens and Jewish people who had just flown in on a flight from Tel Aviv.

Apparently caught off guard, the authorities managed to evacuate the passengers to safety, but not before a bus carrying them had been chased around the airport by a mob angry over Israel's bombing of Gaza in response to the slaughter of Israeli civilians by Hamas on Oct. 7.

While the video images of that riot are quite disturbing, we must also note that it was by no means an isolated incident. Anti-Israel demonstrations, protests, and riots have been occurring throughout Russia’s North Caucasus region.

The unrest followed several other anti-Israel incidents in North Caucasus sparked by Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza. The Dagestani government said early on Monday that it was strengthening security measures across the republic, which is home to about 3 million people.

While pro-Palestinian gatherings are hardly uncommon, particularly in the Western world, it is uncommon that there would be a spate of violent protest of any kind in autocratic Russia. We must remember that last year Russians choosing to protest Putin’s invasion of Ukraine were arrested and charged as criminals.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked protests around the globe, including in Russia where cities have become flooded with angry citizens who denounce President Vladimir Putin’s decision to go to war. 

But unlike in other countries, thousands of Russians have been plucked from the street by police.

Breaching the public peace in this fashion is generally not seen as a positive or even benign activity in Putin’s Russia. Yet it is happening, and it is happening throughout Russia’s North Caucasus region, which is a majority-Muslim part of the Russian Federation.

Comes now the question: Is the Dagestani airport riot yet another sign Putin is losing his grip on his Russian empire?

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One of the more surprising comments made about the Dagestani riot came from Dagestan’s head, Sergei Melikov, who was apparently surprised by the riot.

The head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, was surprised by the “search for Jews” in an airplane turbine at Makhachkala airport on the day of the riots.

Earlier, a video circulated on social networks and Telegram channels in which one of the riot participants looked into the aircraft’s turbine. Subsequently, social network users turned this video into many memes.

One has to marvel that the local head of the Republic of Dagestan would have been blindsided by this spasm of anti-Semitic violence. There were apparently warning signs across social media platforms such as Telegram for weeks before the riot.

A false rumor about the resettlement of Israelis in Dagestan that incited a violent mob at its capital airport Sunday was shared online for longer and more widely than previously reported, according to a New York Times analysis of Telegram posts.

The false narrative was spread across multiple, popular Dagestani Telegram channels in the two and a half weeks before the riot, illustrating the power and danger of disinformation in areas far from the Israel-Gaza war.

Given Russia’s ability to crack down on anti-war protests and Vladimir Putin’s low tolerance for disorder, this building up of anti-Semitic anger and hatred in a more or less open fashion simply should not have happened.

Curiously, when Melikov was questioned about what would happen to those people who were arrested during the riot, he indicated that many would received leniency or might even get away scot-free.

Earlier, Melikov, commenting on the call of the former champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Khabib Nurmagomedov to forgive the rioters, said that not everyone would be punished, but only those who destroyed the airport, used violence against police officers or disseminated false information. According to him, first of all, the organizers and provocateurs who involve people in the riots should be brought to justice, while those who “simply stood with the Palestinian flag” will not be punished.

Melikov’s intimations of leniency for the airport rioters is in stark contrast to earlier comments he made, whereby he promised “no forgiveness” for riot participants.

Russian authorities won’t let anti-Jewish rioters in the southern region of Dagestan get away with taking part in an illegal and violent rally, the region’s head, Sergey Melikov, has claimed, denouncing the unrest as a “betrayal.” 

Melikov at that time also claimed that the Telegram postings which have been blamed for fomenting the riot were the handiwork of Ukrainian intelligence services.

According to Melikov, the “attempts to destabilize the situation in Dagestan” by inciting ethnic and religious division were “carried out by our enemies.” He explained that the calls to join the illegal protests were being spread by Ukrainian nationalists.

“Today we have received absolutely reliable information that the Utro Dagestan (‘Dagestan Morning’) [Telegram] channel is administered and controlled from Ukrainian territory, by traitors, Banderites,” he claimed.

Nor was there any shortage of irony in Melikov’s commentary, who accused the participants in the airport riot of “stabbing in the back” the Russian military forces currently fighting in Ukraine:

Melikov also claimed that those involved in the protests were “stabbing in the back” the Russian military. “While some are fighting against our enemy, others took part in the so-called protest, playing into his hands. This can only be called treason.” 

The “stab in the back” myth and metaphor was popularized in Germany after the end of World War One as an explanation of how Germany came to lose that conflict1, with German Jews being particularly singled out as the ones having betrayed the German military. Whether Melikov was deliberately playing into this historic anti-Semitic trope is of course, unknown and unknowable, but given the parallels between the attritional and bloody First World War and the attritional and bloody war in Ukraine, that particular choice of metaphor is nothing if not striking and even a bit odd.

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Melikov’s seeming coincidental use of an anti-Semitic trope when speaking about the Makhachkala airport riot does serve to highlight another awkward aspect of the unrest in that particular Russian Republic: the warming relations between Moscow and Hamas, as well as between Moscow and Iran.

Even as Israeli forces continue to attack Hamas positions within Gaza, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been receiving members of the Hamas leadership along with their Iranian sponsors in Moscow.

Russia has been condemned for rolling out the red carpet in Moscow for senior leaders of Hamas and Iran — which one alarmed expert called proof President Vladimir Putin is forming a new “axis of terror against the West.”

Russian Foreign Ministry officials met with Hamas leaders Bassem Naeem and Mousa Abu Marzouk in Moscow on Thursday, just weeks after their terror group stormed Israel and slaughtered at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations Russia was siding with Hamas and Iran over Israel, insisting that Russia was maintaining contacts with “all sides”.

“We consider it necessary to continue our contacts with all parties and, of course, we will continue our dialog with Israel,” Peskov told reporters.

Putin has, since the beginning of this latest phase of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, attempted to chart a somewhat neutral course between Israel and Hamas, specifically avoiding condemnation of Hamas while simultaneously criticizing Israeli activities in Gaza.

Since the October 7 Hamas attacks, Putin has played a delicate international balancing act, putting himself forward as a potential mediator and calling for restraint on both sides – a position that has won praise from Hamas.

And in his remarks on Monday, Putin made his most pointed critique of Israel to date, saying that “horrifying events” in the Gaza Strip “cannot not be justified” and added that “your fists clench and you get tears in your eyes” when you see photos of “bloodied, dead children.”

As the recent visits by Hamas leaders and their Iranian sponsors illustrate, Putin is also potentially seeking warmer and closer relations with Iran, who has been providing Russia with drones for use in Ukraine.

Analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency told a small group of reporters during a briefing on Friday that the drone-manufacturing facility now under construction is expected to provide Russia with a new drone stockpile that is “orders of magnitude larger” than what it has been able to procure from Iran to date.

Russia favoring Hamas could be a way of strengthening ties to a necessary ally in an effort to sustain the Russian military machine in Ukraine.

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Yet if Russia is leaning towards Hamas to appease Iran in return for more drones for use in Ukraine, the Dagestani riot may have also exposed how badly Russia needs Iranian support, and how draining the war in Ukraine has been for the Russian military.

It is striking that Dagestan is in that same Caucasus region as Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, of course, recently exploited a lack of military muscle behind Russia’s peacekeeping effort in Nagorno-Karabakh to finally annex the territory which for thirty years has been an Armenian separatist enclave.

Is the unrest in Dagestan unleashed by events in Gaza a further sign of Russian weakness and lack of control in the region?

At a minimum, the unrest poses a challenge for Russia, for if any unrest continues in Dagestan, Putin might have to use scarce military resources to restore order, lest the unrest metastasize into an uprising against Moscow, possibly fomented by majority Muslim Azerbaijan which would definitely benefit from a weaker Russia in the region.

While it is too soon to tell, the unrest in Dagestan could prove to be another step towards Russia’s next battlefield after Ukraine being in the North Caucasus.

Yet simple geography means that the future problems and conflicts in the Caucasus region will inevitably be in some form or fashion Russian problems and Russian conflicts. If it ignores them it risks having at a minimum UN peacekeeping forces near its border. If it ignores them it risks various conflicts and tensions in the region escalating into additional regional small wars literally on its border—not something that promotes one’s own security.

Muslim unrest in Dagestan, which borders Azerbaijan, could very quickly become the sort of internal political crisis which Azerbaijan could exploit while pursuing its disputes with Armenia, making it both more difficult for Russia to position additional troops in the North Caucasus region and more necessary.

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If unrest in the North Caucasus continues, Russia might quickly find its hands full with more fronts and more conflicts than it can handle.

Already, there is more than a few indications the war in Ukraine is stuck in a stalemate.

Sharing his first comprehensive assessment of the campaign with The Economist in an interview this week, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, says the battlefield reminds him of the great conflict of a century ago. “Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he says. The general concludes that it would take a massive technological leap to break the deadlock. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

Note that a stalemate presumes the forces on either side of the front line are in rough parity with each other, so that neither side has even numerical superiority. Depending on the accuracy of western intelligence assessments of Russia’s capacities and reserves for and in Ukraine, the stalemate in Ukraine may already represent a “high water” mark for the Russian military.

If Russia is already at its maximum military potential in Ukraine, then any crisis in the North Caucasus which forces Putin to deploy troops means those troops have to come from the Ukrainian front lines, which could be a weakening of those front lines, which could finally provide Ukraine with the breakthrough it has been seeking.

There is no clear way to extrapolate the true status of Russia’s military strength from either the Dagestani riots or Azerbaijan’s forced annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the unrest in Dagestan is yet another spasm of violence on Russia’s border in the North Caucasus, and thus is another reason to question Russia’s capacity to maintain security and order in that distant yet strategically important region.

Muslim unrest in Dagestan is at the very least another problem for Vladimir Putin, at a time when he likely does not need any more problems. The question whose answer will only be revealed in time is how big that problem truly is.

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With Armenians suffering serious shortages of food and fuel after a months-long de facto Azerbaijani blockade, an aid convoy of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headed into Karabakh on Saturday, the first since Azerbaijan’s military operation.

The ICRC said in a later statement that the convoy had transported nearly 70 tonnes of humanitarian supplies, including wheat flour, salt and sunflower oil, along the Lachin corridor, the only highway connecting Armenia and the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region.

An ICRC team also carried out the medical evacuation of 17 people wounded during the fighting, it said.

Separately, Russia said it had delivered more than 50 tonnes of food and other aid to Karabakh.

Alas, the supply convoys are about the only good news involving the Nagorno-Karabakh region: the separatist government has surrendered, the Karabakh militants are being disarmed, and Azerbaijan’s government in Baku is already planning the integration of Karabakh into Azerbaijan proper.

Azerbaijan’s lighting conquest of the region is also extremely bad news for the Armenian government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whom many Armenians blame for the Azerbaijani takeover of the Karabakh region.

Yet by far the worst news is reserved for Russia, who has seen its influence in the Caucasus completely evaporate in the space of the 24 hours it took Azerbaijan to occupy Nagorno-Karabakh. While Azerbaijan has arguably resolved its primary concern—control of the Karabakh region—a fuller panoply of fractious issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan remain, and Russia now has little influence or ability to shape how those issues will play out.

The failure of Russia’s peacekeeping efforts in the Karabakh could even leave Russia with a future war in the Caucasus.

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To appreciate just how fully Russian influence has collapsed in the Caucasus, it is useful to understand just how substantial the ties between Russia and Armenia have been over the years. In many ways, Russia has been Armenia’s primary security guarantor.

Russia was the mediating signatory for the cease-fires that ended both Nagorno-Karabakh wars. Per the 2020 agreement, Russian peacekeepers will guard the Lachin corridor—a road that connects Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh—through most of 2025. It is unsurprising that Russia—the most powerful country in the region, with linkages to both Armenia and Azerbaijan that stretch back to tsarist days—has played the role of broker between the two countries. But Armenia has allied closely with Russia during the post-Soviet era, balancing out Azerbaijan’s ties with Turkey. Armenia is a member of both the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led security alliance, as well as the Eurasian Economic Union, a single market of five post-Soviet states, while Azerbaijan is a member of neither. Russia also has a large military base in Armenia.

On paper, the CSTO is a Central Asian counterpart to Europe’s NATO1. Whereas the US is the primary military force within NATO, Russia is the primary military force within the CSTO.

Also on paper, the CSTO also provided smaller Central Asian countries such as Armenia with a measure of mutual defense. At one time, this may have been more than just conceptual, as Russia has in the past spoken openly of coming to Armenia’s aid should the much larger Azerbaijan attack its southern Caucasus neighbor.

In January 2006 the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolay Bordyuzha, did not rule out the possibility that the CSTO will use its military potential in the event that Azerbaijan attacked Armenia. The CSTO Secretary General said this in the interview published in the Moscow 'Nezavisimaya Gazeta' on 14 January 2006. "Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty Organization says that the aggression against CSTO member states is considered by other participants as aggression against everyone. No comments are needed in this case. The key task of the CSTO, despite its military potential, is to create such a system which will allow not to enable the armed forces. The Treaty aims to prevent bloodshed and application of force for solving problems both inside the country and on the borders with other states."

Armenia’s own security infrastructure largely relied on membership in the CSTO—an arrangement that led Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan assessing Armenia’s security infrastructure as “99.999%” tied to Russia. Additionally, in 2010 Armenia and Russia signed an extended defense pact that included security guarantees for Armenia.

The defense pact is actually an upgrading of a 1995 treaty allowing Russian ground and air forces access to a base in the west of the country. It expands the Russian mission from protecting only the interests of the Russian Federation, to also ensuring the security of the Republic of Armenia.

Under the pact, Moscow will also supply Yerevan with modern weapons and "special" military hardware. The existing base houses MiG-29 fighter jets and S-300 missile-defense systems, as well as troops.

In an interview broadcast on Russian television before the signing, Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian, praised the new agreement. "We are supporting the initiative to sign this agreement which has very good elements such as equal and indivisible security for all states on the Euro-Atlantic territory and in Eurasia," he said.

A spokesman for Sarkisian's ruling Republican Party, Eduard Sharmazanov, said the new pact would not only protect Armenia's borders, but would exclude the possibility that neighboring Azerbaijan will try to settle the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by force.

Again on paper, Russia presumably had Armenia’s back, militarily. Certainly successive Armenian regimes have believed this to be the case.

However, even in the 2010 treaty, as well as the 1995 pact upon which it was based, there was language which gave Russia a bit of wiggle room on how it would support Armenia in case of a military incursion by Azerbaijan or an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Analysts note the extended treaty only refers to defending Armenia, while Nagorno-Karabakh is legally part of Azerbaijan, and is therefore not covered by the treaty. Any fresh fighting involving Armenian troops would likely primarily be on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, not of Armenia.

Russian analyst Pavel Felgengauer says the treaty is not about Russia defending Armenia from Azerbaijan, but about warding off interference by Turkey.

Former Armenian national security adviser Gerard Libaridian, meanwhile, says the document does not even bind Russia to help Armenia, but leaves intervention to Russia's discretion.

“The 1995 treaty has a provision, which I’m sure will remain in the new one, that if there are military hostilities within Armenia’s borders Russian won’t automatically come to [Armenia's] aid," Libaridian says.

"That is, if one party [to the treaty] is subjected to attack, there will be consultations with the other. It's the other side that will decide whether or not to participate [in the war.] And I don't think that provision will be changed.”

Certainly in 2020, when Azerbaijan last attacked the Karabakh in force, Russia decided not to participate by joining the fray alongside Armenia. Instead, Russia gathered diplomats from both Armenia and Azeribaijan together in Moscow and brokered a ceasefire.

Arguably, the ceasefire was a geopolitical success for Russia, as Turkish support for Azerbaijan was seen by many as carrying the potential for the conflict to spread into a wider regional war.

Both sides appear to be digging in for a longer conflict. Azerbaijan has rejected renewed negotiations with Armenia, and unlike in previous escalations it has a greater degree of Turkish support to count on. The danger is that a longer, protracted conflict will see increased involvement by outside powers, risking a wider regional war.

Bringing Azerbaijan to the negotiating table, preventing or at least delaying a wider conflict, and deploying peace-keeping forces are the power projection acts of a regional hegemon and power broker. Being able to do that was an undeniable geopolitical win for Russia.

All of that power and influence evaporated when Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh last week.

Yet Russia has done little to attempt to retain or regain either the power or the influence. If anything, Russia has conceded the point and surrendered any position of influence over the Caucasus. Not only has Russia more or less abandoned its erstwhile ally Armenia, Moscow has even gone so far as to blame Armenia for the conflict

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Almost immediately after the Azerbaijan attacks began, various Russian media outlets began reporting the situation from a very biased anti-Armenian position, including blaming Pashinyan’s government for the situation.

The fact that the Azerbaijani army is superior to the armed forces of Armenia in military power was obvious even after the 2020 war, however, in modern realities, force alone was not enough to implement the tasks facing Baku; it was necessary to wait for the right geopolitical moment. Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly shown that he knows how to wait for such moments and use them correctly. The international situation is now favorable for Baku.

Yerevan’s diplomatic mistakes have left Armenia virtually without allies: old alliances have already been destroyed, and new ones have not yet been built. In recent months, Yerevan has noticeably deteriorated its relations with its main ally, Moscow. In particular, Nikol Pashinyan’s plans to conduct joint exercises with the United States caused a very sharp reaction from the Russian side.

Even TASS adopted Azerbaijan’s language about the attack being an “anti-terrorist operation”.

Speaking about Baku's operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Peskov emphasized that de jure Azerbaijan operates on its territory, since Armenia recognized Karabakh as an integral part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin called what was happening in Baku an “internal matter . ” At the same time, the importance of respecting the rights of civilians is noted.

Russian political leaders also went to some lengths to pin blame for this latest clash on Armenia, effectively absolving Azerbaijan.

The tragic and unexpected escalation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is a consequence of the irresponsible interference of Western countries in the internal affairs of other countries and peoples. This opinion was expressed by Vice Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev.

“Yesterday’s tragic and rather unexpected escalation of the situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, on the one hand, and the completely predictable costumed antics of [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky at the UN, on the other, are ultimately a consequence of the same phenomena, namely the clumsy and irresponsible intervention of Western states in "led by the United States in the internal affairs of other countries and peoples. The principle of "divide and conquer" was not invented yesterday and continues to dominate the foreign policy of the West," the senator wrote in his Telegram channel .

According to Latvian-based Russia-centric media outlet Meduza, Russian media outlets were instructed by the Kremlin to throw Armenia under the metaphorical bus.

Meduza has obtained a copy of guidelines distributed by the Kremlin late September 19 to Russia’s state-controlled news media. The memo contains instructions on how to cover Azerbaijan’s military strike on Nagorno-Karabakh, in which 32 people have been killed and more than 200 injured.

Russia’s propagandist news media are advised to stress that the assault was precipitated by Armenia and its Western “partners,” and that “the Armenian leadership has recognized the sovereignty of Azerbaijan over Karabakh.”

While it is plausible to blame Russia’s inability to prevent Azerbaijan’s aggression in the Karabakh on its war with Ukraine, its apparent media strategy over that aggression amounts to nothing less than the complete abandonment of Armenia as an ally. Whether this is due to Russia no longer having the resources to support Armenia militarily or Russia having growing discomfort with the Pashinyan government in Yerevan is not entirely certain.

What is certain is that Prime Minister Pashinyan has stated multiple times that Ukraine has made Russia an even more problematic ally than before. In a June CNN interview, Pashinyan stated bluntly that Armenia was not an ally of Russia’s with regards to Ukraine.

"We are not Russia's ally in the war with Ukraine. And our feeling from that war, from that conflict, is anxiety because it directly affects all our relationships," Pashinyan told CNN Prima News in an interview, adding that Armenia felt caught between the two sides.

"In the West they notice that we are Russia's ally ... in Russia they see that we are not their ally in the Ukraine war, and it turns out that we are not anyone's ally in this situation, which means that we are vulnerable," he said.

Russian commentators took this as yet another sign that Pashinyan was moving Armenia away from Russia and towards the west.

Asked about Pashinyan's remarks on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded with caution, saying Moscow had taken note of what he called "an important statement".

"We know that there are certain nuances in Armenia's approach to the conflict over Ukraine. We take them into account, we know them, but at the same time we continue to develop our allied relations with Armenia," Peskov said.

Former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov, commenting on Peskov's statement, said on his Telegram channel that Moscow was "hinting that it sees that Pashinyan is leading Armenia away from friendship with Russia into the arms of Russia's enemies".

If Russia wanted relations to move back towards Moscow, it was unsuccessful at doing so. By mid-September Pashinyan was openly critical of Russia and Armenia’s alliance with Russia, expressing skepticism that Russia could or would support Armenia in the face of mounting tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Ties have warmed and cooled over the years, but in recent weeks, Armenia has in effect declared it has no confidence in Russia's ability to protect it under a defence pact and sought other partners as strains escalate with neighbouring Azerbaijan, against which it lost a short war in 2020.

Russia's perceived absence could open the door for other players - be it Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, China or the West - to try to take its place in the South Caucasus or other ex-Soviet territories it openly considers its sphere of influence.

However, even as Russia is walking away from Armenia diplomatically, it may find walking away from the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan rather more difficult.

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As Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, there are at least three issues that reach beyond the Karabakh region.

The first and perhaps the most contentious is, of course, what is to become of the roughly 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Karabakh.

The governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have made repeated statements in recent months saying that they recognize each other’s territorial integrity, including with respect to Nagorno Karabakh and adjacent districts, which are part of Azerbaijan under international law.

At the same time, Armenia wants detailed guarantees to protect the rights of the ethnic Armenians, and says that the wording that Azerbaijan has proposed during talks on the issue is unacceptable.

However, there are already indications that most if not all Armenians are preparing to flee Nagorno-Karabakh.

The 120,000 ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will leave for Armenia as they do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan and fear ethnic cleansing, the leadership of the breakaway region told Reuters on Sunday.

Armenia's Prime Minister also said the Karabakh Armenians were likely to leave the region, and that Armenia was ready to take them in, following a defeat last week at the hands of Azerbaijan in a conflict dating to the fall of the Soviet Union.

While this likely mass exodus is outwardly one of choice rather than a forced deportation, the fear of future oppression under Azerbaijani rule is producing the same ethnic impact as a forced deportation—the removal of an ethnic community from its historic home.

"Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan. Ninety-nine point nine percent prefer to leave our historic lands," David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh, told Reuters.

It is difficult to ignore a certain parallel to the deportations and genocide of ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 19152. Whether this coming mass migration will lead to a similar humanitarian tragedy is as yet unknown, but the potential for major abuses when that many people are displaced all at once cannot be dismissed.

Beyond the future of the Armenians in the Karabakh, there are lingering questions regarding the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, questions which themselves have the potential to escalate into future conflicts.

The border between the two countries, which runs for at least 600 miles, is not demarcated, and at points, troops are stationed within easy striking distance of each other. Azerbaijan wants the demarcation on its terms. The government of Armenia wants security assurances that could pave the way for Azerbaijan to withdraw troops it has stationed inside Armenia and to reduce border incidents.

The challenge is that even when the two republics broke away from the dissolving Soviet Union, the border between them was not clearly demarcated and uncontested3.

But how do we know where the “real” border is? To simply revert to the borders of the Soviet-era republics might seem straightforward, but in reality the process is mired in difficult technical issues.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, for their entire history as independent states, have never had a fully agreed upon boundary between them. And the November [2020] ceasefire statement gave no indication as to how the border should be drawn or to what standard.

With Azerbaijani troops currently within notional Armenian territory, this is not an issue that can be ignored, and it is an issue with the potential for renewed war all on its own.

Lastly, there is the question of the Azerbaijani territory of Nakhchivan.

Like Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Armenian population felt cut off from the country of Armenia, Nakhchivan is territorially separated from the rest of Azerbaijan.

It accounts for about 6% of Azerbaijan’s territory, with a swath of Armenia about 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide between the exclave and Azerbaijan. It also borders Azerbaijan’s close ally Turkey and Iran. It’s population is about 460,000 people, overwhelmingly Azeris but also some ethnic Russians.

In the 2020 ceasefire agreement over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia was technically supposed to restore road and rail links between Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan proper. Unsurprisingly, this has not been done. Given the obvious residual level of tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the wake of Azerbaijan’s final occupation of the Karabakh, it is difficult to see what incentive Armenia has to restore such links. If it does not restore such links, it is difficult to see how lasting peace between the two ex-Soviet republics is possible.

Any or all of these issues could blossom into a larger conflict practically on Russia’s own border. Any instability in the Caucasus region does not advance Russia’s security interests—hence its reasoning for playing regional hegemon up until now.

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Armenia, for its part, is showing no confidence that Russia is capable of playing a meaningful role in keeping the peace in the Caucasus or imposing its will on all nations as a regional hegemon. Moscow may have helped “negotiate” the current ceasefire essentially by making sure Armenia gave Azerbaijan nearly everything for which it asked, but Armenia would much prefer the UN monitor the ceasefire and police the situation going forward.

“The international community should undertake all the efforts for an immediate deployment of an interagency mission by the U.N. to Nagorno-Karabakh with the aim to monitor and assess the human rights, humanitarian and security situation on the ground,” Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said in a speech to the United Nations, according to a transcript.

If the UN responds with the requested mission effort, and in particular if a UN mission should grow into a UN peacekeeping force—which would elbow the Russian “peacekeepers” out of the region—there is no way that cannot mark the end of Russian influence in the region. That Armenia, with a bilateral security pact as well as CSTO membership technically still in effect, should want the UN rather than its nominal security guarantor to be its effective security guarantor is fairly strong evidence that both the security pact and the CSTO membership are greatly diminished if not completely dead. At a minimum, the other nations in the region will take note of these events and they will impact how they treat with Russia going forward—and not in a way that is likely to be helpful to Russia.

Yet simple geography means that the future problems and conflicts in the Caucasus region will inevitably be in some form or fashion Russian problems and Russian conflicts. If it ignores them it risks having at a minimum UN peacekeeping forces near its border. If it ignores them it risks various conflicts and tensions in the region escalating into additional regional small wars literally on its border—not something that promotes one’s own security.

Russia may have washed its hands of Armenia as a way towards bringing finality to the Karabakh conflict. Russia will not find it quite so easy to wash its hands of the future conflicts which will arise in the region in part because Russia washed its hands of Armenia.

Russia may very well find it has chosen for its next battlefield to be in the Caucasus. That will be a problem—for Russia.

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Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had begun an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Armenian media and local authorities reported heavy bombardment of the regional capital of Stepanakert.

At least five people were killed, including a child, and 80 people were injured, amid artillery, missile and drone strikes by the Azerbaijan military, according to Armenian state news.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, has been the cause of two wars between the neighbors in the past three decades, most recently in 2020.

In little more than a day’s worth of fighting, Azerbaijani forces quickly overran the enclave, taking control of the territory that has been a point of contention between Azerbaijan and Armenia since the collapse of the former Soviet Union 30 years ago.

What gives this regional conflict wider significance is that, in the fighting, several Russian peacekeeping troops were apparently killed.

A car carrying Russian peacekeepers came under fire in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the servicemen in it were killed, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported.

Russian and Azerbaijani representatives of investigative authorities are working at the site of the death of Russian soldiers to clarify the circumstances.

While it would be unwise to read too much into these events, one question does automatically arise: Has Russian power in Central Asia been compromised by the ongoing war in Ukraine?

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With so much focus being paid to the war in Ukraine, it is easy to overlook that Russia has a long border and is involved in regional issues along its length.

With the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan seemingly intractable and endless, Russia in 2020 began deploying troops in the region in a peacekeeping role, to keep the two sides from going to war yet again.

Russian peacekeepers, who deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire, have been tasked with preventing a fresh conflict breaking out. But Moscow has been accused of being unable or unwilling to intervene to protect Armenia, its long-term ally, in the face of continuing aggression from Azerbaijan.

While Russia had successfully kept the peace in the Caucasus, earlier this year Armenia began having second thoughts about its relationship with Russia, and began accepting various overtures from the United States on security and other issues.

Nor has Armenia been shy about stating its reasoning for turning westward and away from Russia: Armenia believes Russia has failed in its peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was blunt on the matter.

La Repubblica journalist Luca Steinmann – The viability of the Lachin Corridor should be guaranteed by Russian peacekeepers. We know that this is not happening, that Azerbaijan is de-facto controlling this corridor. We know how it happened, fake environmentalists and so on. But can you explain us the political process that brought Russia not to intervene to respect the agreement of November 9, 2020 that states that Russia should guarantee the movement through Lachin Corridor?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan – I cannot make evaluation in this respect, except for agreeing with the formulation, that in fact, yes, it tuns out that the peacekeepers of the Russian Federation failed to implement the mission they have assumed under the tripartite statement and this is a matter of serious concern. Essentially, one of the main objectives of the presence of the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh was to ensure the security of the civilian population. In this case security involves the freedom of movement, and this right is not implemented, which is a matter of concern.

The Lachin Corridor is a roadway between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper by which the ethnic Armenians in the enclave are able to be supplied with food and other necessaries. On December 12 of last year, Azerbaijani activitists began blockading the Corridor presumably to protest Armenia’s illegal mining and exploitation of Azerbaijani natural resources within Nagorno-Karabakh.

Part of Russia’s peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh was to ensure the corridor stayed open. However, as became apparent earlier this spring, Russia’s success in keeping tensions in the region under control had slipped dramatically.

In May, a brief border clash erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia, just as the leaders of both countries were due to meet with European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels for talks on settling their conflicts.

The incident comes just days before European Council President Charles Michel is to host Armenia’s Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev for talks in Brussels on Saturday.

The two also agreed to meet together with the leaders of France and Germany on the sidelines of a European summit in Moldova on June 1, according to the European Union.

The EU meeting came after US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hosted the leaders in Washington, and reported “substantial progress” on their border security issues.

With Russia having negotiated the 2020 ceasefire arrangement, for this many western diplomats to be involved in settling this issue is remarkable.

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Even more remarkable is the rather amazing coincidence that the Azerbaijani attacks occurred literally days after US troops arrived in Armenia for a “peacekeeping training exercise”.

Approximately 85 U.S. Soldiers will train alongside approximately 175 Armenian soldiers during Eagle Partner, a peacekeeping training exercise in Armenia, from Sept. 11-20.

The U.S. Soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and Kansas National Guard, and the Soldiers from the Armenian 12th Peacekeeping Brigade will conduct the training at Zar and Armavir Training Areas near Yerevan.

With Russia having assumed primary peacekeeping responsibility for the region in the 2020 ceasefire, for US forces to be even practicing peacekeeping duties in Armenia is quite remarkable.

As the training area is near the Armenian capital of Yerevan, it is unlikely the US forces were ever in any danger from the Azerbaijani attacks. However, with two separate incidents involving fatalities among Russian peacekeepers during the Azerbaijani “anti-terrorist operation”, the US presence on Armenian soil does seem to highlight Russia’s seeming impotency with regards to this conlict.

Sputnik Armenia: two deputy commanders of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the region were killed as a result of shelling in Karabakh.

There is a particular irony in Russia voicing disapproval over the US-Armenian exercise even as Azerbaijani forces are responsible for Russian deaths in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The arrival of US soldiers for a peacekeeper training exercise in Armenia has rankled the Russian government, which has for decades acted as the sole security guarantor for the former Soviet republic. The 10-day “Eagle Partner” exercise, which began Monday, involves 85 US and 175 Armenian soldiers and aims to prepare the Armenians to take part in international peacekeeping missions.

The exercise, while small in scale, is the latest in a series of what Russia’s foreign ministry has deemed “unfriendly actions” taken by its traditional ally.

Yet the training exercise is merely the latest move by Armenia towards the west. Perhaps more significantly, Armenia’s Parliament seems likely to ratify the Rome Statute, acceding to the International Criminal Court—the same body which has issued an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.

Armenia recently sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time, and its parliament is set to ratify the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute – meaning it would be obliged to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he were to set foot in the country, which Russia has long viewed as its own backyard.

Armenia’s flirtation with new international partners has been spurred by its frustration that Russia has been unable or unwilling to defend it against what it sees as aggression from neighboring Azerbaijan, and has raised questions about Russia’s ability to retain its hold on countries and conflicts across the former Soviet empire.

Indeed, Armenia’s westward turn is arguably far more than a flirtation, given Pashinyan’s statements to Italian media earlier this month.

Armenia’s security architecture 99,999% was linked to Russia, including in the logic of procurement of arms and ammunition, but today we see that Russia itself is in need of weapons, arms and ammunition and in this situation it’s understandable that even if it wishes so, the Russian Federation cannot meet Armenia’s security needs. This example should demonstrate to us that dependance of linkage in security matters from just one partner is just a strategic mistake. And after tasting the bitter fruits of this error post-factum, we are taking feeble attempts to diversify our security policy, including casting a different glance on own region, because it’s one thing when we in our region live under continuous confrontational logic with our neighbors, but say ok, someone will care for our security. But when in practice it comes to this someone to take care of our security, it turns out that this someone either does not want to or cannot ensure our security. These are realities which we have to confront with.

While the precise state of Russia’s military is inherently a matter of speculation, Pashinyan’s statements certainly add some credence to the perception that Russia’s military has taken a bit of a beating in Ukraine. We should bear in mind that, despite assessments in the West that Russia was massing troops in northern Ukraine for a fresh offensive, none has been forthcoming.

How can Russia have lost half or more of its combat effectiveness, be unable to mount counteroffensive operations, and still be able to mass 100,000 troops plus 900 tanks along the northern part of the front?

A country which can amass 100,000 troops at a concentrated point surely has some combat capacity.

At the same time, if Russia has massed 100,000 troops near Kupyansk, why aren’t they attacking more vigorously? Why aren’t there larger territorial gains being made?

Pashinyan’s talk of “bitter fruits” makes Russia’s efforts to take a victory lap over the latest “cease-fire” in Nagorno-Karabakh (really a surrender by the Armenians in the enclave) seem a bit silly.

Endorsing yet another cease-fire in the conflict that embroils two of Moscow’s closest partners — Armenia and Azerbaijan — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “noted with satisfaction” on Wednesday that the Russian peacekeepers he sent to the region to enforce an earlier, failed truce had helped quell the renewed fighting.

Not mentioned in the Kremlin’s account of Mr. Putin’s telephone discussion with the leader of Armenia, however, was the fact that Russia’s peacekeepers had done nothing to keep the peace in the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, as Mr. Putin had promised they would three years ago

Perhaps even sillier is the fact that RIA Novosti reports Russia’s contribution to the ceasefire as helping to disarm Karabakh’s militant forces.

The armed forces of Karabakh, under the control of Russian peacekeepers, began to hand over weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles, the Ministry of Defense reported .

“As of September 22, the following were delivered: six units of armored vehicles, more than 800 units of small arms and anti-tank weapons, about 5,000 ammunition,” the department’s newsletter says.

There are still 826 civilians in the custody of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, including 440 children, who now have no opportunity to return to their homes.

A peacekeeping force is supposed to prevent the sort of dislocating violence that leaves men, women, and children with no home and seeking refuge elsewhere. By that measure Russia’s efforts at peacekeeping have clearly failed.

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Nor is it exactly a glowing endorsement of Russia’s peacekeeping abilities that Azerbaijan’s terms for the ceasefire were an outright surrender by forces within Nagorno-Karabakh.

Karabakh authorities said they have asked for immediate talks with Azerbaijan, amid continued shelling of the region.

In response, the Azerbaijani Presidency said it is willing to meet with Karabakh Armenians, but added in a statement: “To stop anti-terrorist measures, illegal Armenian armed groups must raise the white flag, surrender all weapons, and the illegal regime must dissolve itself. Otherwise, anti-terrorist measures will be continued until the end.”

The Azerbaijani defense ministry demanded in a statement Tuesday “the complete withdrawal of ethnic Armenian troops and the dissolution of the government in Stepanakert.”

“The only way to achieve peace and stability in the region is the unconditional and complete withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and the dissolution of the puppet regime,” it said.

RIA Novosti’s depiction of Russia’s involvement in the new ceasefire arrangement confirms reporting in western media that the pro-Armenian government in Karabakh has, in fact, surrendered and dissolved itself.

However, after pro-Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to lay down arms in the face of Azerbaijan's offensive, there are worries for the enclave's Armenian population.

Unable to withstand Azerbaijan's new offensive, the enclave's ethnic Armenian government has effectively surrendered, agreeing to fully disarm and disband its forces in return for a ceasefire. Both sides said talks will now be held on Thursday on issues around the "reintegration" of Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan.

This being primarily an ethnic conflict between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples, Russia’s failure as a peacekeeper has the potential to lead to a fairly substantial humanitarian crisis in the Caucasus, as there are over 120,000 ethnic Armenians at risk of being displaced as Azerbaijan asserts control over Nagorno-Karabakh.

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While Russian influence has been visibly waning in the Caucasus for most of the year, the speed with which Nagorno-Karabakh fell can only mean that Russian influence in the region has simply evaporated. Russian peacekeepers might still be in the region, but as they are assisting in disarming Karabakh’s armed forces they appear to be little more than functionaries assisting the Azerbaijani forces as they formalize their control over the region.

Russia certainly is not the power broker here, particularly as there do not appear to be any consequences accruing to Azerbaijan for the deaths of Russian peacekeepers (who almost certainly were killed by Azerbaijani shelling).

Intriguingly, neither is the US or the EU. The US-Armenian peacekeeping exercises were hardly a secret, and it is difficult to ascribe timing of the Azerbaijani attack as mere coincidence. While Azerbaijan is far from being any sort of global power, in the Caucasus they appear to have concluded they are the power in the region, and they are proceeding to exert hegemonic influence over the region.

At the moment, no one is telling Azerbaijan they cannot do that. Russia certainly is not telling Azerbaijan they cannot do that.

Yet on paper Russia has far more military assets than both Armenia and Azerbaijan combined. All things being equal, Russia should have more than enough military muscle to compel everyone in the Caucasus to play nice with each other.

Of course, all things are never equal, and the most obvious source of inequality for the Russian military is the war in Ukraine—a war Putin initiated in large measure to secure Russia’s south European flank.

It would be the epitome of perverse irony if, as a result of Putin’s efforts to improve Russia’s security and influence in Europe, it has now lost all influence (and security) in the Caucasus. However, if Russia no longer has the miltary muscle to hold sway in the Caucasus, if it can no longer act as the regional hegemon there, the most probable reason for this sudden deficiency is the war in Ukraine.

Only time will tell what the true state of the Russian military is, but, at this moment, that perverse irony abounds.

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