2025-08-22 21:53:07
The bloody war waged by Vladimir Putin and his regime against the independent Ukrainian state, with the aim of its destruction, has never just been a matter of bringing its largest European neighbor to heel.
The Kremlin is equally determined to reclaim the superpower status that Russia lost in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and believes Ukraine’s subjugation will aid this aim.
That lost status once included, among other things, holding talks with the Americans as equals — two leaders deciding the fate of Europe, if not the world. Trump granted Putin that status in Alaska.
Russia plays the long game. The Kremlin strongly believes that it is engaged in an existential war with the West, and in this contest, Moscow has never seriously considered a lasting peace deal as a viable option. It’s either us or them — that is the lesson drawn from the traumatic history of Russia by the now-elderly members of the Russian Security Council, most of them ardent students of history who lost their first careers in the turmoil of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
In their view, every peace deal Russia has made with Western powers has either led to another war or triggered a bloody regime change, followed by the disintegration of the Russian state.
The regime’s solution has been to pick fights with smaller neighbors since the 2008 war with Georgia, selling the restoration of national pride through militarism to the Russian people.
But while that is the policy, the rhetoric is very different. The Kremlin elite believes that real peace is by definition unachievable, but cannot say as much. It therefore plays a blame game — and the Kremlin’s goal, both tactical and strategic, is to shift the blame for this failure onto Europe.
This anti-European narrative is aimed at multiple audiences.
One is Donald Trump and his circle, whom the Kremlin hopes may be looking for a way out of the conflict and a villain to offload responsibility.
Another is a domestic audience in Russia, increasingly tired of the war, with a sense of depression palpable across Russia, most visibly in big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Trump’s re-election inflated expectations of a swift end to the war, even within the military, and Putin must now address this. Happily, from the regime standpoint, Russian polls have shown more hostility to Europe than the US among ordinary Russians, which the Kremlin finds very useful in present circumstances.
The final message is to European voters. The Kremlin didn’t miss J.D. Vance’s speech at Munich in February, where he assailed the migration and free speech policies of European allies, and if there’s an opportunity to tell Europeans that peace could be achieved by replacing their liberal elites with more nationalist-leaning governments, Russia won’t miss it.
Having secured a desired result in Alaska, Putin will move on to his next goal: to separate the issue of “the Ukrainian conflict”, as the Kremlin calls it, from Russia’s global standing.
The status quo — in which Russia is seen solely as an aggressor and a pariah state by the West — has become increasingly frustrating for Putin and his inner circle. He aims to reduce the war to the status it was in 2014-2022, when the relationship with the US was frosty, but respectful. That would reduce Russia’s imperial quest to just one of many diplomatic matters, not the single, defining issue that determines the role of Russia on the world stage.
If successful, Russia would then re-enter high-level talks with the United States on strategic arms control, the Middle East, and so on, leaving Ukraine off the main agenda. And from there, the Kremlin will push for lifting the sanctions most important to Moscow — those targeting the movement of capital and technologies.
The Kremlin desperately needs to rejoin the SWIFT banking network for international transaction, as well as access to modern Western technologies, the lack of which became a serious obstacle for the development of a military industrial complex that is now falling behind.
As a Chatham House report noted in July: “Being ‘good enough’ to prolong a war against Ukraine is not the same as being able to keep up with Western (and Chinese) advances in military technology.” If, as Putin intends, Russian militarism is to prosper, these issues must be fixed.
Paradoxically, the Kremlin is not interested in lifting all the Western sanctions, for instance, those that contributed to Russia’s isolation from the West. The Kremlin no longer needs or wants Schengen visas for Russian tourists, American and European professors teaching Russian students, or children of the elites studying in Harvard and Oxford. Putin understands that close ties with the West expose Russians to dangerous liberal ideas.
When confronted with a choice between the costs of stability against the costs of modernization via globalization, the Russian authorities tend to choose isolation – as they have for centuries.
When Tsar Nicolas I, mortally afraid of political changes and deeply traumatized by the Decembrists revolt, heard of the July 1830 revolution in Paris, he immediately recalled all Russian citizens from France to Russia, including the aristocrats, to prevent the virus of the French revolution spreading to his countrymen. He froze the country and halted innovation, but secured his regime.
Putin now seeks to do the same, aiming to cherry-pick what he needs from the West while keeping Russians quarantined from its ideas.
Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are Non-resident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). They are Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities. Their book ’Our Dear Friends in Moscow, The Inside Story of a Broken Generation’ by Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov was published in June.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-22 01:08:08
US President Trump deserves credit for one thing: he has put the end of Russia’s abominable war on Ukraine at the top of the international agenda. In less than a week, he has met with Vladimir Putin, who is prosecuting this war, President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who is defending his country, and several European leaders, including the heads of NATO and the EU, who are concerned about the future of Europe if Putin were to prevail.
Trump has brought up every issue of significance, including territory, abducted Ukrainian children, future security guarantees, a ceasefire, and a long-term peace agreement. He is pushing for an end to the war, and everyone’s attention is focused at the highest possible levels.
Marshalling such international attention is a good thing, and good may yet come of it. Thus far, however, we have seen absolutely no movement from Putin toward ending his war against Ukraine. For Putin to move, he needs to see that his state finances are collapsing, and his military cannot maintain its frontline effort in Ukraine. These conditions do not exist today, but they may ripen by the end of this year. If so, we may well see a ceasefire and the resurrection of deterrence to prevent future war.
By agreeing to meet in Alaska, President Trump has already offered a few diplomatic wins to Putin: unable to travel to most Western countries because of his 2023 indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for abducting Ukrainian children, Putin was welcomed to the United States, and Trump literally rolled out a red carpet. The US President backed off his call for an immediate ceasefire and agreed to work toward a permanent peace agreement instead. Trump also backed off his threat of severe secondary sanctions and tariffs if Putin did not implement an immediate ceasefire.
Putin did not reciprocate. He continued to reject a ceasefire. He maintained his maximalist demands, such as insisting that Ukraine formally cede territory to Russia which the latter has taken by force, and withdraw from additional territory that Russia has been unable to conquer. Putin left Alaska having not moved a single inch, while securing an easing of US pressure.
President Zelenskyy and European leaders, alarmed by what they saw in Alaska, flocked to Washington, DC three days later, on August 1,8 to hammer out their own clear position with President Trump. Though it may sound like faint praise, they made progress.
In contrast to their February meeting in the Oval Office, the August 18 encounter between Zelenskyy and Trump went well. The rapport among all the European leaders and President Trump was also good. There was no pressure on Ukraine to give up territory, and all involved agreed on the need for security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent future Russian aggression.
They supported direct talks between Putin, Zelenskyy, and Trump as a good next step to ending the war. President Trump even stepped out of the meeting to speak with Putin and reportedly secured the Russian leader’s agreement to a bilateral meeting with Zelenskyy, to be followed by a trilateral with President Trump.
Missing in all these diplomatic exchanges is a connection to the real world. Putin continues to pummel Ukrainian cities (with more than 600 drones and missiles launched from August 20 to 21 alone) even as talks continue. Putin parses his words carefully, so that even the diplomatic “progress” he seemed to imply is actually less than meets the eye.
Immediately after the European leaders and Zelenskyy had left Washington, Putin rolled out the fine print on his talks with Trump. According to Foreign Minister Lavrov, Putin would not actually meet with Zelenskyy right away (even as state-directed propagandists dismissed even the possibility of a summit).
Instead, he proposed a series of lower-level meetings to “create the conditions” for a future meeting. Lavrov also said security assurances for Ukraine could only happen if they were provided by Russia itself, whose interest in Ukrainian security rests upon a fox-chicken dynamic, and China, which is not much better. Putin continues to play games while maintaining his maximalist position.
The real-world situation is no different than two weeks ago, before all of this diplomacy, no different than seven months ago, when Trump took office, and indeed no different than three and a half years ago, when Russia first launched its full-scale invasion.
So how does any of this bring us closer to an end to the war? As time goes by, Russia is burning through its military and economic capacities. By the end of this year, it may be Russia that seeks a ceasefire.
Two key things are needed to convince Putin to end the war: first, seeing that a reliable, visible, known pipeline of military support, including American arms and ammunition, will continue to flow to Ukraine uninterrupted; and second, seeing that Russia will not have the oil and gas revenue necessary to simultaneously prosecute the war and continue the functions of the Russian state. We are getting closer to both, but the West must pile on the pressure.
One month ago, President Trump green-lighted European purchases of American arms and ammunition for transfer to Ukraine and charged NATO with its coordination. As announced on August 18, there is now a proposed $90bn pipeline of funding, provided by Europeans, for Ukrainian purchases of American arms and ammunition. NATO countries should make sure that this includes long-range, precision weapons that can take out Russia’s military lines of communication, something Ukraine is increasingly doing with its home-produced drones. NATO should also be tasked to help Ukraine develop a layered, integrated air defense system.
On the economy, Russia’s fundamentals are already on a downward trajectory. Growth has slowed, inflation is officially still almost 9% (and probably much higher), interest rates are an eye-watering 18%, there is an overall labor shortage, and a dearth in supplies of key supplies and components. Even without new Western sanctions, Russia could come to a crunch point by the end of 2025. Tough secondary sanctions by the United States and Europe could hasten this timeline.
The most recent flurry of diplomatic activity has heightened the international focus on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine, but has not yet made any difference in changing Putin’s calculations. Even so, with the passage of time, Russia’s military and economic fundamentals continue to worsen.
Those factors, more than any international meetings, mean that a ceasefire in Ukraine is becoming more likely by the end of 2025. The West should pile on secondary sanctions and open-ended military support as quickly as possible to get Putin to end this war, and to deter the next one.
Ambassador Kurt Volker is a former US Ambassador to NATO and a former US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-22 00:53:16
If you had asked someone in Budapest or somewhere in the magyar puszta, the Great Hungarian Plain, who Péter Magyar was in early 2024, you would have been met with raised eyebrows. Magyar who?
Only a few, very well-informed people would have told you that he was a jurist with some well-paid, state-affiliated jobs, and was the ex-husband of Katalin Varga, former Minister of Justice and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right hand.
If you had asked the same just a few days after the infamous presidential pardon scandal, which led to the resignation of Varga and the President of Hungary, Katalin Novák, in February that year, more people would have associated him with anti-government protests centered on child protection, profound corruption, and general dissatisfaction with Orbán’s government.
Fast forward to the European Parliamentary elections in June 2024. Magyar had become not only a household name but also the challenger to Orbán’s 15-year-long reign. A newcomer to politics, whose name literally translates to “Peter (the) Hungarian”, he cemented himself as the most prominent opposition leader, and one who actually has a real shot at replacing Orbán’s illiberal government.
Since last year, Magyar has not merely secured himself a place as a contender in Hungarian politics; he has succeeded in turning it upside down. His popularity has been steadily growing, and it is not limited to urban regions, unlike the traditional opposition parties. For the first time in more than a decade, Orbán must respond to internal political developments seriously, as Magyar has managed to seize the narrative from Orbán’s mostly compliant media and run with it.
Magyar, now 44, and his Respect and Freedom Party, usually referred to as Tisza, after “the most Hungarian river”, as locals like to call it, are building on rising dissatisfaction with the shenanigans of 62 year-old Orbán’s wealthier-than-ever inner circle, and the disappointing economic situation (Hungary is now the most corrupt and second-poorest in the 27-member EU).
Magyar focuses on everyday issues that concern Hungarians. Since the pandemic, there has been a lack of economic progress, while the prime minister, his family, and business associates have grown richer. While Orbán and company enjoy a lavish lifestyle with Birkin bags, real estate with exotic animal,s and luxurious trips abroad, the healthcare, education and social systems are on the brink of collapse nationwide, as Magyar habitually points out.
But the removal of Orbán remains a huge task; the illiberal premier will not go quietly and remains a formidable opponent. The next election is expected to be held in April next year. Current opinion polls are eye-opening — Magyar’s party is leading Orbán’s Fidesz by 45% to 37%. That’s an earthquake by Hungarian standards and is Fidesz’s lowest rating in more than a decade.
Even so, previous opposition attempts to unseat Orbán have failed. Earlier elections, in 2018 and 2022, saw opposition parties either running alone or as a coalition, but the main opposition never achieved more than 34% of the vote, while in 2022, Fidesz won 54%.
What might the ruling party’s response be to the prospect or reality of defeat? Some hope that change might come from within the circles around Orbán. Others worry that the party would fight to retain power regardless of the popular verdict. The Russian intelligence service is already preparing the ground with allegations that the EU is working for “regime change” at the election.
The state’s greatest weapon, aggressive smear campaigns directed at Magyar, have become part of everyday Hungarian life. Attempts to discredit his character have included teary-eyed interviews with his former wife accusing him of domestic violence (without investigation), secret audio recordings by his former girlfriend, and public mockery over him adjusting his trousers before his first-ever face-to-face encounter with Orbán in the European Parliament. None of this will come as a surprise to Magyar; his former wife, Varga will have given him a good sense of how the prime minister fights his battles.
Politically, Magyar has been associated with left-wing opposition figures, accused of being a puppet of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and labeled “the Hungarian Zelenskyy” for his alleged pro-Ukraine stance. He is blamed by pro-government media for a range of supposed evils, including the freezing of €19bn ($22bn) in EU funds, failing hospitals, and delayed trains.
The smear campaigns have failed. The only AIM for Fidesz OF these fearmongering narratives IS TO solidify its core voting base, roughly 2.5 million Hungarians. And yet that is the primary audience Magyar seeks to win over.
In a quest to capture die-hard or disillusioned Orbán supporters, Magyar has gone on several road trips across Hungary, visiting small towns and poverty-stricken villages as well as Hungarian communities in neighboring countries — something Orbán and allies have done only rarely and for curated “supporters only” meetings.
Magyar knows well that the outcome of the elections will be sealed by small-town residents and the undecided. Against the odds given Hungary’s urban-rural divide, he enjoys popularity in the countryside, something that fellow opposition politicians have always struggled with. His town hall-style public meetings allow his messages to reach the ears of Fidesz voters. He is a good speaker, energetic, and fairly young and athletic, a contrast to the older Orbán.
Regardless of his likability, Magyar must walk a fine political line. To attract (disappointed) Fidesz supporters, he has maintained key elements of Orbán’s policies, including rejection of migration, a cautious stance on the war in Ukraine and that country’s EU accession, and on certain ideological issues. Failure to do so would bring immediate damnation from a hostile media.
The election, now only eight months away, will be a fearsome test. While it may be free, it will not be fair. The election law is tailored to favor Fidesz (or the largest party), a significant portion of the media is under state control, and the government does not shy away from throwing money at its target audiences in the form of social benefits and loans, even though the state treasury is almost, if not completely, empty.
The coming months will see the most intense campaign period Hungary has ever witnessed, centering on the epic battle between Orbán and Magyar. The challenger has stamina and popularity, but the incumbent has the experience, ally-filled institutions, and countless money to create a highly uneven playing field.
Whether Magyar can bring substantial change to the country is an open question, but he is without doubt better-placed to topple Orban than any other political leader in recent times.
Ferenc Németh is a Ph.D. candidate at Corvinus University of Budapest. He has previously conducted research on the Western Balkans in Toronto and Skopje, worked as a research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, and interned at EULEX Kosovo. His areas of expertise include the Western Balkans, EU enlargement, and regional security. Ferenc was a Denton Fellow at CEPA in 2024.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-22 00:45:36
Since 2022, the West has endeavored to help Ukraine and convince Russia to end its war of aggression. Despite Ukraine’s sustained defense, noble multinational efforts to assist, and Kyiv’s signing of multiple security agreements with Western states and the European Union (EU), such labors have not succeeded yet in forcing Russia to seriously engage with efforts to bring peace.
The stalemate has evolved into a war of attrition, characterized by drones, glide bombs, artillery strikes, and some Russian gains, but no significant breakthroughs. The toll of dead and wounded, and damage done, is simply breathtaking.
The core of the West’s strategy against Russia hinges on compellence, which differs from deterrence. The latter involves encouraging a state to refrain from certain actions by assuring punitive retaliation. Compellence entails insisting a state change its behavior by inflicting pain through a variety of measures. The West’s largely compellence-centric approach, which replaced its previous deterrence-based strategy, has hurt Russia, but not altered Putin’s defiant behavior.
While Russia has suffered heavy losses and its economy looks to be in trouble, Putin will likely only stop for good if he faces a credible deterrent. The West’s current strategy, including its military assistance to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and even America’s threat of tariffs on select buyers of Russian oil, lacks a credible deterrent. Putin also knows that imposing high tariffs on another country for trading with Russia, while excusing others for doing business with Moscow, amounts to a further, and unsustainable, stab at compellence.
Efforts to deter Putin have been limited, with the exceptions of his decision not to use tactical nuclear weapons to date, and his occasional — but not full — travel restrictions abroad due to an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant. Europe’s plan to make Ukraine into a “steel porcupine” arguably embodies a deterrence by denial strategy, but it is far from complete.
The United States has worried about establishing a credible deterrent against Russia over Ukraine because it could ignite a conflict spiral, and repositioning resources may hinder its ability to deter China from invading Taiwan or undertaking other hostile acts. European states, meanwhile, face their own challenges in deterring Russia over Ukraine, for despite strong declarations by the UK and France to assist in protecting Ukraine following the war’s eventual end, any “coalition of the willing” will remain heavily dependent on capabilities only the US possesses.
This leaves the West with a strategy that assists Ukraine, while minimizing the chances of stumbling into a wider war. Yet this approach is based on an optimism that Russia’s continued casualties and economic struggles will eventually force Moscow to quit. There is little sign of that.
Indeed, talks following the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on August 15 could yet strain US-European relations or pressure Kyiv into ceding territory. The chances of brokering a lasting armistice appear remote. Putin’s irredentist thinking means that a ceasefire would likely just pause his aggression. Ukraine, in turn, has no intention of ceding land. At this juncture, the Kremlin may simply be bluffing about being open to ending the war.
Despite talk of designing “security guarantees,” Western states seemingly prefer to coordinate theirs with Ukraine after hostilities with Russia cease. Yet the possibility exists that Russia may derail all attempts at resolving the conflict, to prevent security guarantees from materializing. Russia has restated that it would reject any post-war security guarantee for Ukraine that involves the deployment of forces from NATO members.
If the war endures, or if a pause proves unsustainable, then the West would have to re-evaluate the level of risk it is willing to incur to ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty. Western states may ultimately persist with compellence, but its limitations will have been laid bare.
To establish a credible deterrent under these circumstances, the West would need to risk war with Russia. This could involve Kyiv being officially invited to prepare to join a military alliance with one or more Western states.
Such an approach is fraught with daring assumptions regarding feasibility, as well as the West’s current security burden-sharing impasse — the US has made clear it will not offer formal defense guarantees to Ukraine, while European states are badly under-armed for conflict with Russia, even if they possessed the political will. These issues would have to be resolved prior to the alliance’s enactment to make any future Western deterrent credible.
Furthermore, a deterrence-based strategy, supplementing existing sanctions and military aid to Ukraine, would trigger an escalation, likely with Russia formally declaring war against Ukraine, mobilizing its hitherto shielded conscript army, and engaging in more nuclear saber-rattling against the West.
It’s unlikely Putin would launch a conventional attack against NATO or initiate a nuclear exchange. Instead, a sitzkrieg (or “sitting war”—where both sides would find themselves at war but not engaging in any conventional operations) or a type of “frozen conflict” could arise once this new Western alliance including Ukraine, is enacted.
This is far from ideal, but Moscow may appreciate the hazard of such a situation and agree to negotiate an armistice with the West and Ukraine along current lines or at least halt its advance. In other words, in spite of such brinksmanship, a Western shift to a deterrence-based strategy conceivably offers a way to halt a runaway Russian war machine against Ukraine before any fighting with the West starts.
Granted, this is risky. But by initiating and then phasing the recognition of Ukraine as a member of an alliance, Russia would be given time to consider its options, pursue diplomacy, and possibly halt its military advance. The Kremlin would face the pressures of both compellence and deterrence.
It is a time to ask the question: If not this, then what? More than three and a half years into Europe’s most destructive conflict since World War II, new thinking is needed.
Charles Sullivan is the author of Motherland: Soviet Nostalgia in the Russian Federation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and Leaders of the Nation: Kazakhstan during the Twilight of the Nazarbayev Era and the Russo-Ukrainian War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).
The opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-20 23:12:47
Russian state media have been fawning over Vladimir Putin since his August 15 meeting with US President Donald Trump. It was a triumph for the Russian leader, they declared. Experts queued up to detail the almost-countless victories the Russian president had scored against what they like to call the collective West.
From Moscow’s viewpoint, the die was cast, and Trump was moving towards pressure on Ukraine to capitulate — the only peaceful resolution of this war that Russian mouthpieces ever envisioned.
On August 18, the Solovyov Live channel, which bills itself as “the biggest patriotic channel in the nation,” was broadcasting Trump’s meeting with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and European leaders at the White House. This live broadcast was presumptuously entitled: “Breaking News: Ukraine’s Capitulation.”
Host Sergey Karnaukhov excitedly followed along as events in the White House unfolded. He smirked and giggled at the European leaders, showing a fake AI-generated image of them sitting on chairs in a hallway like schoolchildren waiting their turn to see the head teacher.
After a while, it began to dawn on Karnaukhov that the much-anticipated surrender was slipping away. He bristled about the presence of the European leaders, arguing they had prevented Trump from pressuring Zelenskyy to hand over Ukrainian land and its population to Putin. Frustrated and apparently failing to realize he had already answered his own question, Karnaukhov complained, “Why did all of them have to come? For what?”
He dismissed the Ukrainian president’s peace terms as “unacceptable” to Russia and “impossible.” Karnaukhov went on: “For example, the Americans didn’t want to talk to Gaddafi.” In gory detail, he described the demise of Saddam Hussein, once again trying to draw a taunting parallel with the popularly elected Zelenskyy, whose main fault in Russian eyes is a refusal to surrender Ukraine in Russia’s imperial war of conquest.
His voice trembling with anger, Karnaukhov said, “Do Americans realize what kind of a destructive potential there is in a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy? It has colossal potential. It would eradicate the entire era of our president’s rule, as the greatest humiliation of a country. I’m sure they understand this at the Kremlin.”
It’s worth noting that Karnaukhov’s certainty about regime thinking is well-founded. His senior editors are among those attending weekly sessions at the Kremlin, where they are directed by senior Putin aide Alexy Gromov on how to cover the news.
So when he says Putin and Zelenskyy “can’t be on the same [TV] screen,” he is very likely revealing more than he intended. Russia has no interest in a summit between the combatants, he added, “because this is a great president of a great country, who is fighting for humanitarian values, who is trying to save the planet. On the other side is the emissary of Western intelligence agencies, who would obtain a lifetime of legitimacy after this meeting.”
After the viewers’ hopes for a speedy capitulation were momentarily dashed, Karnaukhov comforted them with assertions that Trump remains on Putin’s side. Rolling up his eyes in search of an inspiration, he said: “I would very much like to believe that Trump, along with our president, is playing a bigger game. It’s possible. In this big game, you can win in a very interesting way. We can lure them into an escalation and destroy them completely, over there in Ukraine. After this, through the efforts of Russia, the United States, and a great number of countries that are on our side, we can start to pressure Europe and explain, ‘You started this. It’s your fault that this has happened.’”
Warming to the theme, he continued: “This could become a brilliant scenario of destroying democratic Europe. There will be one overthrow after another, one revolution after another. Europe will be different. All of this is totally possible.”
Karnaukhov’s guest, Trump biographer Kirill Benediktov, chimed in to agree: “This moment is potentially rich with opportunities. There weren’t that many moments like this during this century.”
On other shows, the mood was similar. Frustration over the meddling Europeans was overcome by a firm belief that Trump would force Ukraine to submit and surrender, and that the capitulation was not canceled, but merely delayed.
Meanwhile, Russia’s top propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, was unusually subdued and refrained from sharp criticism or nuclear threats. He had just found out that during the Washington visit, the Ukrainian delegation gave a collection of Solovyov’s derogatory quotes about Trump directly to the American president.
Fearing he might undermine Russia’s lucky streak with the US leader who claims there is real “warmth” in his relationship with Putin, the loquacious Solovyov has suddenly started to watch his words.
Julia Davis is a columnist for The Daily Beast and the creator of the Russian Media Monitor. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild, and Women In Film.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-20 04:21:40
“The Druzhba oil pipeline is taking a rest,” crowed Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s drone chief, on August 18. “Greetings from the Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces.”
The strike, the second in less than a week, took out the 4,000km (2,500-mile) pipeline, bringing to an indefinite halt oil flows which had been supplying Central Europe via Ukraine and Belarus since the early 1960s.
The language was tongue-in-cheek, but the destruction of the Nikolskoye oil pumping station in Russia’s Tambov region by Ukraine’s 14th Drone Regiment was hardly a laughing matter, especially for Hungary and Slovakia, which have an established addiction to cheap Russian energy.
The two Kremlin-friendly states, the only remaining buyers of Russian oil, lashed out, claiming the latest attack on their energy security was “outrageous and unacceptable.”
Ukraine has a poor relationship with both countries and little reason to consider their feelings, given their record of blocking aid to Kyiv within the European Union (EU). So the attack may have been partly intended as payback for this, and for Hungary’s refusal, alone among EU members, to co-sign a statement supportive of Ukraine ahead of US President Donald Trump’s summit in Alaska with Vladimir Putin on August 15.
But there are broader implications. The attack was arguably part of a much wider and sophisticated geopolitical battle that is now being fought out from Central Asia in the east to the heart of Europe in the west.
Since the start of the year, Ukrainian long-range missiles have struck military and energy installations deep inside Russia, causing damage that the Ukrainian General Staff claims to be worth over $74bn, the equivalent of 4.11% of Russia’s annual GDP.
Close to 80% of these attacks targeted oil refineries and depots, triggering domestic fuel shortages and impairing Russia’s ability to supply oil products to military hubs closer to the Ukrainian border.
However, since the beginning of August, a sequence of Ukrainian and Russian strikes against oil or gas installations suggests the two countries’ targeting has moved well outside the confines of the current battlefield and deep into the Eurasian landmass.
On August 2, Ukrainian intelligence sources indicated the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline linking Russia to Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan had been shut down indefinitely following explosions along the route in the Volgograd region.
Historically, the transmission network had been used to transport Central Asian gas to Russia, but since 2023, flows have been reversed, allowing Russia’s Gazprom to reach new consumers after losing most of its market share in Europe.
Four days later, on August 6, the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy said Russia had hit a metering station on the Trans-Balkan pipeline, close to the Romanian border.
The corridor had been used to transport Russian gas, but after 2020, shipments were diverted to TurkStream, allowing regional companies to import gas from elsewhere via the Trans-Balkan lines.
In August, for the first time, Ukraine’s Naftogaz was importing small volumes of Azerbaijani-sourced gas via this route.
On August 8, Russia continued its attacks in the region close to Odesa, hitting an oil depot owned by the Azerbaijani oil and gas producer SOCAR. The facility was initially damaged, but a subsequent attack by 15 Russian drones completely destroyed it.
Ukraine appears to have followed a similar pattern, hitting and initially damaging a pumping station on the Druzhba pipeline in the Bryansk region on August 13 before striking and fully disabling flows on the pipe five days later.
The goals of the Ukrainian and Russian attacks on August 18, just hours before a visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders to Washington to negotiate the terms of a possible peace agreement, went much further than simply disabling some energy installations supplying military operations.
Ukraine and Azerbaijan have been growing closer in recent months.
Russia’s shooting down of an Azerbaijani airline on Christmas Day, security services raids against Azerbaijanis in Russia, the recent killing of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Yekaterinburg, and Russia’s apparent involvement in the contamination of Azerbaijani oil exports to Romania have brought Baku closer to Kyiv.
Azerbaijan has been stepping up aid to Ukraine and is ramping up mass production of badly needed 122mm and 155mm shells.
Furthermore, the US recently brokered a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which lays the foundations for a 40km corridor connecting Azerbaijan proper to Turkey via Armenia and Azerbaijan’s exclave Nakhchivan, and gives Washington a 99-year mandate to oversee the operation of this lucrative corridor. This upends decades of Russian regional influence and caused anger in Moscow.
It also enables Azerbaijan and potentially neighbouring Turkmenistan to direct their oil and gas resources westwards along the new route, further undermining Russia’s role as an energy supplier in Central Asia and Europe.
Ukraine’s recent attack on the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline, impairing Gazprom’s access to Central Asian markets as well as its political rapprochement with Azerbaijan, points to Kyiv’s growing presence in Central Asia and the Caspian region, and to growing problems for the Kremlin.
Dr. Aura Sabadus is a senior energy journalist writing for Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), a London-based global energy and petrochemicals news and market data provider. She is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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