The Collapse Begins: Russian Forces Spearhead Largest Single-Day Breakthrough of War

Simplicius

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Well, it’s finally happened. Ukrainian lines have seen possibly their first major breach down to the operational depth, or nearly so, as Russian forces struck out as much as 20km north of Pokrovsk. But the real story is much more nuanced than that.

Russian troops had been accumulating there in small pockets since late July, shaping the ground. A fierce debate has erupted over whether these are “DRGs” or regulars as Ukrainian accounts have lazily resorted to labeling anything penetrating the first line of defense as “DRGs”, but in reality these are mostly regular troops which simply accumulated in a weakened portion of the front. Hotspots on the front, where main assaults are expected, act as a kind of gravitational force, pulling everything toward them, and sucking resources and reinforcements in the sector away from neighboring lower-priority fronts.

You can see below, the yellow lines represent active Russian advancing operations, and the blue lines represent Ukrainian resources being pulled to plug the gaps and staunch the flow. But these resources are pulled away from a de-prioritized area which then “bursts” forward (red line), provided that Russian intelligence is aware enough of Ukrainian operational deficits there:

Russia 'perfecting' China's sabotage tactics for war against West

Richard Holmes

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The West is dangerously exposed to a co-ordinated threat of sabotage attacks by Russia and China, a classified European Union intelligence report has warned. The assessment, sent to Brussels in the spring and seen in part by The i Paper, underscores increasing concerns from Western officials that Beijing and Moscow are working in parallel, learning from each other’s tactics to undermine Western democracies and sow chaos.

“What is innovated by China on one end of the globe will be perfected by Russia on the other,” according to a portion of the report. “[EU nations] need to respond jointly and globally to attacks – even (or especially) those countries who are only indirectly affected.” In a stark warning from EU diplomats to European commissioners, the document warns of “a gap” in Western thinking which China and Russia are seeking to “exploit”.

Experts consulted in the report, and anonymised before sharing with this newspaper, said that Russia is learning from Beijing’s so-called “grey zone” tactics in Taiwan, and perfecting them for use in Europe. The term “grey zone” is used to describe the situation which exists between peace and open warfare and hostile activities fall just below what might be considered traditional acts of war.Chinese military vessels in waters off Taiwan practising a blockade of the self-ruled island (Photo: Taiwan defence ministry)

What Does Palantir Actually Do?

Caroline Haskins

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Palantir is arguably one of the But a number of former Palantir employees tell WIRED they believe the public still largely misunderstands what the company actually does and how its software works. Some people think it's a data broker that buys information from private companies and resells it to the government. Others think it’s a data miner, constantly scanning the internet for unique insights it can collect and market to customers. Still others think it maintains a giant, centralized database of information collected from all of its clients. In reality, Palantir does none of these things, but the misconceptions continue to persist.

Palantir has tried to correct the record itself in a series of blog posts with titles like “Palantir Is Not a Data Company” and “Palantir Is Still Not a Data Company.” In the latter, Palantir explains that “misconceptions can arise because our products are complicated,” but nonetheless, “it is absolutely possible” to accurately describe them to “people who are curious.”

The problem, however, is that even ex-employees struggle to provide a clear description of the company. “It's really hard to explain what Palantir works on or what it does,” says Linda Xia, who was an engineer at Palantir from 2022 to 2024. “Even as someone who worked there, it's hard to figure out, how do you give a cohesive explanationmost notorious corporations in contemporary America. Cofounded by libertarian tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the software firm's work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US Department of Defense, and the Israeli military has sparked numerous protests in multiple countries. Palantir has been so infamous for so long that, for some people, its name has become a cultural shorthand for dystopian surveillance.

How Pakistan seduced Trump Islamabad is the linchpin of Asian diplomacy

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

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Tampa is a town of hot sun and cold beer — the ideal retirement spot, in other words, for a broad-shouldered US general. Yet if Michael Kurilla was all smiles as he bid farewell to military life, at a ceremony in the Florida city on Sunday, he was shadowed by a rather unusual guest. For amid the stars and stripes and smiles stood another senior officer, not American at all but the de facto leader of an Islamic government half the world away.

Offering Kurilla a friendly handshake — and Dan Caine, America’s top military officer, an invite to his Pakistani homeland — Field Marshal Asim Munir is clearly at home in the Land of the Free. In June, for instance, he enjoyed a two-hour private lunch with Donald Trump, while Islamabad has also nominated the President for the Nobel Peace Prize, describing him as a “genuine peacemaker” who’d soon bring peace to Iran and Gaza alike. Never mind that Tehran is bloodied and Rafah a wasteland: such shameless toadying has long been central to Pakistani foreign policy.

After all, there have to be some advantages to sharing your four land borders with the continent’s great powers of India and China, alongside the pariah states of Iran and Afghanistan. And if our new geopolitical era is to be defined by multilateral deal-making, atomic brinkmanship and vaulting duplicity, Pakistan would appear to be extraordinarily well-positioned. There is, perhaps, no nation on Earth better at playing one set of interests off against another — especially when it’s the only Muslim nuclear power, and enjoys a robust tradition of self-interested military leaders keen to consolidate their own power.

The Rise of the US Military’s Clandestine Foreign War Apparatus

Seth Harp

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The Rise of the US Military’s Clandestine Foreign War Apparatus. The 2020s are shaping up to be one of the most violent decades in modern history, with American-sponsored proxy conflicts and shadow wars smoldering all over the world, from Ukraine to Yemen to Gaza. The United States enables and prolongs these wars not by sending troops to fight in them, but by trafficking arms to the belligerents, providing intelligence to its favored proxies, and using covert operations, especially assassinations, to shape geopolitical conditions. At the forefront of these clandestine US military machinations is the Fort Bragg-based Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, which despite its relative invisibility to the public is far and away the most powerful organization in the military, and one of the most influential institutions in the US government. But it was not always this way.

As I discuss in my new book, The Fort Bragg Cartel, the rise of JSOC does not date back to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, or the wars that the United States waged in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Twin Towers. Rather, the origins of JSOC’s takeover from within are traceable to the darkest days of the Iraq War, about five years after 9/11, when things were going considerably worse for American war planners and foreign policy officials, and—in a backlash that would lead to the election of President Barack Obama—the public was turning sharply against US involvement in foreign wars.

Lisa Su Runs AMD—and Is Out for Nvidia’s Blood

Lauren Goode

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While everyone else has been talking about Nvidia’s GPUs, Lisa Su has discreetly turned AMD into a chipmaking phenom. And as the US-China tech war rages, she’s at the center of it all.A piece of advice if you’re meeting with Lisa Su: Wear sneakers. Su, the leader of AMD, moves fast these days, though I suspect that’s always been the case. Her company's chips underpin the artificial intelligence that’s changing the world at breakneck speeds. To hear Su and literally everyone else in semiconductors talk about it, the US is in an AI race with China—and the rules keep changing. The Trump administration has once again shifted its stance on what kind of chips can and can’t be shipped to China, with the latest decree being that the US will take a 15 percent cut of AMD and Nvidia chip sales to China. Meanwhile, on the home front, Su has claimed that AMD’s newest AI chips can outperform Nvidia’s—part of her strategy to keep eroding Nvidia’s dominance in the market.

So, yeah: Be ready to keep up. Under Lisa Su, the stalwart American semiconductor company has reasserted itself as a force in the age of AI. “Reasserted” doesn’t do it justice: Su took a struggling AMD and executed a 10-year turnaround that has been, as one economist put it, nothing short of remarkable. Since 2014, when Su took over as CEO, AMD’s market cap has risen from around $2 billion to nearly $300 billion.

Aside from her well-known bona fides, Su herself—what drives her, what inspires her, what irritates her, where her politics lie—is less known. This is what I was hoping to learn when I visited AMD’s offices and labs in the hills of Austin, Texas, on a day in late June when the wind seemed to do little more than push heat around

Stop the over-reliance on drones to win future battles, Rusi warns the UK's military

Jonathan Moynihan

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Western militaries should not depend on drones, given the problems that the Ukrainian armed forces are having with them, Rusi has said. The think-tank report said that the war in Ukraine was dominated by the use of first-person view (FPV) drones in theatre and one-way attack (OWA) drones, helping conventional cruise and ballistic missiles for long-range strike campaigns.

Through the continued use of drones over traditional platforms like tanks and artillery, many senior figures in Western militaries, politicians, and journalists believe that previous military doctrines are outdated, Professor Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at Rusi, said.As UK waves goodbye to HMS Pembroke, here are five other Navy vessels sold abroadUkraine's new supply chain explained as Netherlands and Nordic nations buy armsWhen pixel isn't perfect: Ukrainian armed forces to switch to MultiCam-style uniform.

"They [drones] are not a replacement for your high-end weapon systems," Prof Bronk told BFBS Forces News."They are what are increasingly required to get your high-end weapon systems through to target."Prof Bronk highlighted four problems with relying on drones too heavily in the face of Russian aggression.First, he said that the over-reliance on drones will play into Moscow's strategy.This is because Putin's forces have the best counter-drone capabilities in the world, having improved them steadily during the conflict."They have a wide range of dedicated C-UAS electronic warfare systems, modified infantry weapons and short-range air defence (SHORAD) systems integrated at all levels of their ground forces," Mr Bronk wrote in the paper.

Why Russia’s Most Famous Arms Manufacturer Is Now Making Fiber-Optic Drones

Peter Suciu

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Both sides in the ongoing war in Ukraine are increasingly using fiber-optic drones, which are directly connected to their operator and cannot be jammed by electronic warfare methods. The Kalashnikov Concern—once led by legendary Soviet arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, famous around the world for his creation of the AK-47 assault rifle—will continue to produce small arms for the Russian military and export market. However, the state-owned weapons manufacturer has also pivoted to other platforms, most notably unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The Russian-based firm is now providing an enhanced “20-day-endurance” Kvazimachta drone to support the Kremlin’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine.

Unlike other drones that can operate for only a few hours, the Kvazimachta reconnaissance UAS can reportedly remain airborne for up to 500 hours. “As a rule, there is no need for such continuous operation. As a rule, it operates for 24 hours. That is, it hovers in the air, then an operator brings it down to check if everything is all right and its diesel generator can be replaced or some other maintenance is carried out,” Kalashnikov Group Director for Exports of Drones and Loitering Munitions Leonid Rokeakh told state news agency TASS on Monday.

According to Rokeakh, the drone remains active the entire time, with its power and data also transmitted via a cable to the ground. While the tether reduces its range, the recon track can maintain control on the perimeter for long durations. In addition, the drone can also provide a video feed via optical and infrared bands in real time to ground-based terminals.

How the UK Can Help the Himalayan Water Crisis

Jagannath Panda, and Shruti Kapil

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As climate change reshapes the geopolitical landscape, the United Kingdom must recognize the Himalayan water crisis for what it is: a looming threat to global security. With its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and renewed Indo-Pacific ambitions, Britain is uniquely placed to elevate Himalayan ecological degradation from a local and regional concern to a global priority. Melting glaciers, climate-induced variability, and unregulated dam construction in the Himalayas are placing millions of lives at risk in South and Southeast Asia. This must not go unnoticed in Westminster, especially when it has been a traditional stakeholder and a historical player in the Himalayas.

The Himalayan region holds the largest reserves of fresh water outside the Arctic and Antarctic. Its glaciers feed ten of the world’s most important river systems, which sustain nearly two billion people across South and Southeast Asia. Yet, this ecological marvel is under severe threat. Climate change is accelerating glacial melt in the mountain range at an alarming pace, altering monsoon patterns, and intensifying the frequency of extreme weather events. The result is a region gripped by water stress, food insecurity, and heightened geopolitical (including boundary dispute) tensions, particularly between India and China.

Beijing has started building the world’s largest dam in Tibet, the Medog project on the Yarlung Tsangpo, a significant engineering feat if completed. But without any consultation or a water-sharing agreement, China now controls the lifeline of northeast India and parts of Bangladesh. This river flows downstream into India as the Brahmaputra and further into Bangladesh as the Jamuna, supporting millions of livelihoods.

Why the Trump-Putin Summit Won’t Bring a Ukraine Deal

Paul J. Saunders

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A US-Russia summit reportedly set for August 15 in Alaska has captivated Washington and European capitals. Commentators are decrying the guest list (shouldn’t Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky join?) and warning about President Donald Trump’s possible concessions to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The hand-wringing misses the point. The central challenge to any ceasefire or peace deal is not who sits at the table or what Trump might offer. It is the absence of convincing evidence that Putin himself wants an agreement to end his war in Ukraine.

Negotiations can work only if both parties prefer a settlement to the status quo and other manageable alternatives. To date, Russia’s president appears to believe that he is winning and likely sees no compelling reason to relinquish now what he expects to take later. Likewise, notwithstanding regular suggestions that Russia’s economy is struggling under US and Western sanctions, there is little evidence that Russia’s leader feels pressure to make significant concessions as a result. Nor are growing casualties producing domestic pressure. So far, Putin has successfully managed this domestic political problem by insisting that his invasion was necessary for Russia’s security rather than optional.

Zelensky Worries He Might Lose at the Negotiating Table

Whether or not he travels to Alaska to meet Trump or Trump and Putin, something that looks improbable if not impossible, President Zelensky probably fears pressure to make concessions that he might not have to if his country gets a little more outside help. And since he can more-or-less count on Putin to refuse a meeting with him, a pressure campaign on Trump to include him costs little and reminds all that Kyiv’s acquiescence will eventually be necessary. And that even under pressure, there are limits to what Ukraine’s government and public would accept.

Is Pakistan’s Second Chance in the Tribal Areas Slipping Away?

Sadia Younas

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The president of Pakistan enacted the 25th Amendment to the constitution on May 31, 2018, signalling a watershed moment in the country’s constitutional landscape with expansive socio-political corollaries for the frontline populations of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA). Eight clauses of Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution were modified by the 25th Amendment to reflect this legal change. FATAs’ pre-existing “discriminatory status” as a constitutionally suspended zone was abolished (Art. 1), leading to its territorial merger with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), while PATAs were incorporated into the provincial governments of Balochistan and KP (Art. 246).

Over seven decades after Pakistan’s independence, the 25th Amendment finally upgraded the status of FATA community members from “subjects” to that of “real citizens,” noted Muhammad Zubair. To counteract the longstanding dominance of oppressive colonialism under the tutelage of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), this legislation promised historically disadvantaged indigenous groups newly acquired constitutional rights and meaningful democratic influence in both the provincial legislature of KP and the National Assembly.

Yet, the observable reality has fallen far short of the spirit of the changes. What we see in the merged districts (MDs) is a shallow governance architecture without grounding. Despite its redesignation and the semblance of a unified structure and leadership, there are limited substantive reforms, a lack of state accountability and inadequate strategic thinking – all of which hinder prospects for sustainable performance.

Yes, borders can be changed by force

Anthony J. Constantini

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President Donald Trump’s planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin has the Ukrainian government on high alert. It’s not just the fact that Trump will be speaking with Putin one-on-one, but that it comes amidst a reported offer from Putin to agree to a ceasefire and freeze the battlefield – provided Ukraine turns over Donbas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is strongly against such a proposal, has flooded European leaders with calls to ensure they oppose such a deal. And he has been successful: Leaders around the continent have released multiple statements. All of these statements began with some verbiage about supporting President Trump’s efforts, but the rest was clearly opposed to the idea that any deal could be struck with Russia. All contained two key demands and almost verbatim language: “No decisions on Ukraine without Ukraine, and no decisions on Europe without Europe,” and “We reaffirm the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.”

Start with the former: “No decisions on Ukraine without Ukraine, and no decisions on Europe without Europe.” Throughout the conflict this notion has been constantly thrown around, including by the administration of former President Joe Biden. But on the face of it, it has never made sense. Plenty can be done without Ukraine’s permission. The United States can, as Vice President JD Vance indicated Sunday, is “not going to fund [the war effort] ourselves anymore.” That is a decision on Ukraine, but America absolutely does not need Europe’s permission to act on that front.

Russia pierces Ukrainian defense in Donetsk

Yurii Stasiuk

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Kremlin forces have punctured Ukraine’s defensive line in the Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian research group DeepState, ahead of critical U.S.-Russia talks on the future of the war. The breach exposes issues in the Ukrainian army, military analysts said, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the new assaults show that Russia is not seeking an end to hostilities.

“[Vladimir Putin] is definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war,” Zelenskyy said Monday evening. “On the contrary, [Russians] are redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations.” On Friday, Russian leader Putin will meet American President Donald Trump in Alaska to potentially discuss ending the war between Moscow and Kyiv. Zelenskyy has voiced concerns that the Russians would try to deceive the U.S. about their true intentions.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has reportedly demanded Ukraine surrender parts of the Donetsk region that Moscow does not fully control as part of a possible ceasefire deal, which Kyiv has rejected. Though the Ukrainian military denied that Russian troops secured new positions in Donetsk after advancing roughly 15 kilometers in the past five days through a narrow sector, DeepState, which uses open-source intelligence to monitor front-line movements, says senior commanders are systematically downplaying the scale of the problem — an assessment echoed by some military figures on the ground.

India Must Not Fall Into Trump’s Tariff Trap

KAUSHIK BASU

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US President Donald Trump’s decision to hit nearly all Indian imports with a sweeping 50% tariff has upended one of India’s most important trade relationships. Instead of retaliating, India should draw on its non-aligned legacy and cultivate economic relationships with a wide range of like-minded countries. NEW YORK – Economic relations between India and the United States have been thrown into disarray after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 50% tariff on nearly all Indian imports, with the exception of iPhones and certain pharmaceutical products. The move places India among the five most heavily targeted countries under Trump’s tariff regime, alongside Brazil (50%), Syria (41%), Laos (40%), and Myanmar (40%).

DANI RODRIK thinks most countries have failed to capitalize on the crisis that Donald Trump has created. The announcement caught Indian policymakers off guard, particularly given Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s open support for Trump’s re-election campaign. The White House’s harsh statement, framing the move as punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil, has only added to the confusion. As the Wall Street Journal recently noted, this reasoning does not hold up, since China – the largest buyer of Russian oil – has not been penalized for its purchases.

This dynamic is reminiscent of Anton Chekhov’s short story “The Ninny,” in which an employer withholds the equivalent of nearly a month’s salary from his children’s governess for arbitrary reasons. The governess accepts each cut without protest – a passivity that the employer chastises as spineless. The economist Ariel Rubinstein later drew on Chekhov’s story to develop a model illustrating how submission can invite exploitation.

Vladimir Putin Could Be Laying a Trap

Jonathan Lemire

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Vladimir Putin has had a tough few months. His military’s much-feared summer offensive has made incremental gains in Ukraine but not nearly the advances he had hoped. His economy has sputtered. Donald Trump has grown fed up with Putin’s repeated defiance of his calls for a cease-fire and, for the first time, has targeted the Russian president with consistently harsh rhetoric. Last week, Trump slapped one of Russia’s major trading partners, India, with sanctions.

Putin needs to buy time to change the trajectory of the conflict. So the former KGB spymaster has given Trump something that the U.S. president has wanted for months: a one-on-one summit to discuss the end of the conflict. Trump leaped at the chance. But as the two men prepare to meet in Alaska on Friday, foreign-policy experts—and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—are warning that Trump could be walking into a trap that the Russian leader is setting on American soil.

“Putin has already won. He is the leader of a rogue state, and he’ll get a picture on U.S. soil with the president of the United States,” John Bolton, one of Trump’s former national security advisers, told me. “Trump wants a deal. And if he can’t get one now, he may walk away from it entirely.” Putin has shown no sign of compromising his positions. His demands to reach an end to hostilities remain maximalist: He wants Russia to keep the territory it conquered, and Ukraine to forgo the security guarantees that could prevent Moscow from attacking again. Those terms are nonstarters for Ukraine and the European nations that have rallied to its defense.

Johns Hopkins is building classified versions of its AI wargaming tools for DoD, IC - Breaking Defense

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr

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LAUREL, Md. — As the Trump Administration tries to jumpstart American AI amidst concerns about AI ethics and hallucinations, experts here believe they’ve found a low-risk, high-payoff way to leverage Large Language Models right now: wargames.

At least some federal agencies are receptive: Elements of the Defense Department, Energy Department, and intelligence community are asking the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to take the AI-enhanced wargaming tools it’s developed, called GenWar and the Strategic AI Gaming Engine (SAGE), and upgrade them to run on classified networks using “highly classified data about our adversaries,” said James Miller, APL’s assistant director for policy and analysis.

“It’s going to be somewhat straightforward to move this onto TS/SCI networks,” Miller told a wargaming conference here last week, using the official shorthand for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. “We have one sponsor that’s very keen to do it quickly and others are interested as well.” A former undersecretary of defense himself, Miller preaches that “wargaming is a critical tool” for everything from long-term budget planning — for example, simulating how a proposed new weapon might affect a future war before investing billions to build it — to brainstorming the next move in the middle of a crisis. 

Republicans, Democrats alike exhort Trump: Keep security pact with Australia and UK alive

ALBEE ZHANG
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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. lawmakers from both parties are urging the Trump administration to maintain a three-way security partnership designed to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines — a plea that comes as the Pentagon reviews the agreement and considers the questions it has raised about the American industrial infrastructure’s shipbuilding capabilities.

Two weeks ago, the Defense Department announced it would review AUKUS, the 4-year-old pact signed by the Biden administration with Australia and the United Kingdom. The announcement means the Republican administration is looking closely at a partnership that many believe is critical to the U.S. strategy to push back China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. The review is expected to be completed in the fall.

“AUKUS is essential to strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and advancing the undersea capabilities that will be central to ensuring peace and stability,” Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan and Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois wrote in a July 22 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Moolenaar chairs the House panel on China and Krishnamoorthi is its top Democrat. The review comes as the Trump administration works to rebalance its global security concerns while struggling with a hollowed-out industrial base that has hamstrung U.S. capabilities to build enough warships. 

Documents detail China's AI-powered propaganda push

David DiMolfetta

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The Chinese government is enlisting a range of domestic AI firms to develop and run sophisticated propaganda campaigns that look far more lifelike than past public manipulation efforts, according to a cache of documents from one such company reviewed by Vanderbilt University researchers. The company, GoLaxy, has built data profiles for at least 117 sitting U.S. lawmakers and more than 2,000 other American political and thought leaders, according to the researchers that assessed the documentation. GoLaxy also appears to be tracking thousands of right-wing influencers, as well as journalists, their assessments show.

“You start to imagine, when you bring these pieces together, this is a whole new sort of level of gray zone conflict, and it’s one we need to really understand,” said Brett Goldstein, a former head of the Defense Digital Service and one of the Vanderbilt faculty that examined the files. 

Goldstein was speaking alongside former NSA director Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads Vanderbilt’s National Security Institute, in a gathering of reporters on the sidelines of the DEF CON hacker convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“We are seeing now an ability to both develop and deliver at an efficiency, at a speed and a scale we’ve never seen before,” said Nakasone, recalling his time in the intelligence community tracking past campaigns from foreign adversaries to influence public opinion. Founded in 2010 by a research institute affiliated with the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, GoLaxy appears to operate in step with Beijing’s national-security priorities, although there is no public confirmation of direct government control. Researchers said the documents indicate the firm has worked with senior intelligence, party and military elements within China’s political structure.

This isn’t how wars are ended: a veteran diplomat puts Trump-Putin summit in context

Donald Heflin and Naomi Schalit,

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A hastily arranged summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is set for Aug. 15, 2025, in Alaska, where the two leaders will discuss a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not attend, barring a last-minute change. The Conversation’s politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed longtime diplomat Donald Heflin, now teaching at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, to get his perspective on the unconventional meeting and why it’s likely to produce, as he says, a photograph and a statement, but not a peace deal.

How do wars end?

Wars end for three reasons. One is that both sides get exhausted and decide to make peace. The second, which is more common: One side gets exhausted and raises its hand and says, “Yeah, we’re ready to come to the peace table.” And then the third is – we’ve seen this happen in the Mideast – outside forces like the U.S. or Europe come in and say, “That’s enough. We’re imposing our will from the outside. You guys stop this.” What we’ve seen in the Russia-Ukraine situation is neither side has shown a real willingness to go to the conference table and give up territory.

The Critical Importance of Ukraine’s Fortress Belt in Donetsk Oblast

ISW Press

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Kremlin officials are reportedly demanding that Ukraine cede to Russia strategically vital unoccupied territory in Donetsk Oblast and freeze the frontline in other areas as part of a ceasefire agreement. The surrender of the rest of Donetsk Oblast as the prerequisite of a ceasefire with no commitment to a final peace settlement ending the war would force Ukraine to abandon its "fortress belt," the main fortified defensive line in Donetsk Oblast since 2014, with no guarantee that fighting will not resume. Putin's reported proposal reportedly demands that Ukraine concede this critical defensive position, which Russian forces currently have no means of rapidly enveloping or penetrating, apparently in exchange for nothing. The precise terms of Putin's position remain unclear as of August 9; however, Trump Administration officials, particularly US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff, have offered four different presentations of Putin's terms.The fortress belt is made up of four large cities and several towns and settlements that run north to south along the H-20 Kostyantynivka-Slovyansk highway, with a total pre-war population of over 380,537 people. The belt is 50 kilometers long (roughly 31 miles, about the distance between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland).

Ukraine has spent the last 11 years pouring time, money, and effort into reinforcing the fortress belt and establishing significant defense industrial and defensive infrastructure in and around these cities.

Slovyansk and Kramatorsk form the northern half of the fortress belt and serve as significant logistics hubs for Ukrainian forces defending in Donetsk Oblast. Druzhkivka, Oleksiyevo-Druzhkivka, and Kostyantynivka serve as the southern half of the fortress belt.

Ukrainian forces first began building up defensive positions in and around these cities after retaking them from pro-Russian proxy forces who attacked and seized Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostyantynivka in April 2014.

Russia's failure to seize Slovyansk in 2022 and ongoing struggles to envelop the fortress belt underscore the success of Ukraine's long-term efforts to reinforce the fortress belt cities.

Russian forces are currently still attempting to envelop the fortress belt from the southwest and are engaged in an effort to seize it that would likely take several years to complete.

“Brutal Catalyst: What Ukraine’s Cities Tell Us About Recovery From War”

Susan Siegrist Thomas

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Exploring the legacy of war and the path for recovery, Brutal Catalyst examines the effects of Russia’s invasion on the key Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Kherson, and Mariupol. Glenn compares Ukraine’s cities to postwar Nagasaki, Tokyo, Berlin, and Manila. Drawing on historical perspectives, he investigates urban destruction, recovery strategies, and key takeaways. Brutal Catalyst is a foundation for understanding the geopolitical significance of urban warfare and its societal consequences. Targeting Ukrainian civilian-centric locations caused disproportionately high civilian casualties, referred to as Russian “urbiside” by Glenn (p.21). In occupied cities, Russia employed Influence tactics, including introducing Russian currency, promoting misinformation, implementing re-education efforts, and modifying living conditions. Glenn notes these in the context of propaganda as means of control and assimilation. These effects and the broader conflict’s impact have displaced “one-quarter of the national population” (p.22).

Lessons from Historic Postwar Recovery

Glenn turns to World War II-era case studies, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Berlin, Manila, and Sarajevo, to illustrate how large-scale devastation, ideological conflicts, and public health crises define recovery. For example, post-war Japan sought to balance urban physical reconstruction goals with investments in health infrastructure to combat malnutrition and mental illness. Without a comprehensive, long-term strategy and investment, recovery stagnated, impacting quality of life, fostering corruption, and black-market activity. Corruption, political hierarchies, and warzone conditions aggravated Berlin’s post-war recovery. The corrupt environment necessitated black markets for survivors (p. 74). Glenn also highlights the role of architecture as both a historical and political force, noting how decisions to rebuild or replace structures shaped the course of postwar recovery.

Why Trump Is Waging a Little War in Somalia

William Bittner

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Although his Secretary of State describes China as “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted,” the administration’s rhetoric towards terrorists is equally shrill. Following an airstrike against an Islamic State-Somalia (IS-S) leader, the president promised all terrorists, “We will find you, and we will kill you!” Behind the bravado lies a belief that, even in an era of great power competition, foreign terrorist attacks are an existential threat. “These killers,” he wrote on social media, “threatened the United States and our allies” — even though they were “found hiding in caves.” For all his rhetoric about ending forever wars, terrorism remains on Trump’s mind.

It is thus unsurprising that Trump would prioritise Somalia. It is a major hub of terrorism: IS-S is now the Islamic State’s most online and externally-focused franchise, serving as a nerve centre and funder for partners as far away as Afghanistan. Western intelligence even believes that Abdulqadir Mumin, leader of IS-S, is the current caliph of the global Islamic State. If Trump wants to fight terrorism, Somalia seems a good place to do so.

Trump has a political motivation as well. He needs only look at his predecessors to see the risks of letting a Middle Eastern state collapse. President Obama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq in 2011 allowed ISIS to dominate his second term, while the disintegration of Libya set the stage for the Benghazi controversy. President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan triggered a decline in his poll numbers from which he never recovered. Trump does not want Somalia to be his Middle East disaster.