More than 10,000 Ukrainian troops encircled – Russian military
RT | October 26, 2025
Around 10,000 Ukrainian troops have been encircled by Russian forces in the Kupyansk and Krasnoarmeysk areas, President Vladimir Putin was told on Sunday during a visit to a Russian Army command post.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Putin held a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and senior military commanders, during which he was briefed on the situation along the line of contact.
“It was noted that up to 5,000 Ukrainian troops are encircled in the Kupyansk direction and around 5,500 in the Krasnoarmeysk direction,” Peskov said.
Kupyansk is a city in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region, around 100km east of Kharkov. Krasnoarmeysk is located in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, currently occupied by Ukrainian troops.
The military reported that Russian forces also captured a crossing over the Oskol River, cutting off the movement of Ukrainian troops. They are currently completing the liberation of Yampol, while nearby Volchansk is said to be 70% liberated.
A total of 31 Ukrainian battalions have been encircled in the Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov areas. According to Peskov, Putin congratulated the troops on their success in Kupyansk and the achievements of combat missions in other areas.
During the meeting, Putin ordered measures to ensure the surrender of the encircled Ukrainian troops and to minimize casualties. He noted that the Russian Army has always shown mercy toward its enemies and stressed that this must continue.
The president also urged the commanders to “do everything” in their power to ensure the safety of the civilian population in the encircled areas, who he said Ukrainian forces are using as human shields.
Putin also urged the army to continue the military operation “in accordance with the plan developed by the General Staff,” stressing that the safety of Russian service members must remain the top priority.
Trump may not follow through on Russian oil or Tomahawk
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | October 25, 2025
The US President Donald Trump has seemingly shifted gear in the US strategy to stop Russia on its tracks from creating new facts on the ground in Ukraine. Russian forces have the upper hand all along the 1250-km Ukrainian frontline stretching Kiev’s defences and resources, which no amount of western military help can hope to reverse in a foreseeable future. Trump is compelling Russia to seek a military victory in Ukraine.
Trump so far put on the air of a statesman in great anguish over the humanitarian aspects of the conflict. Moscow tolerated the theatrical show to pamper Trump’s egotistic personality — that is, until Putin shattered the myth last week to expose that Trump actually holds the record as the American president who sanctioned Russia the most number of times, exceeding even his predecessor Joe Biden’s tally.
Trump, in the new avatar as war monger has unveiled a strategy of climbing the escalation ladder in the war until Putin capitulates. To that end, he has expanded the sanctions regime to include Russia’s oil industry, and is toying with the idea to supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles that can hit deep inside Russian territory.
The US Treasury Departments’ press release announcing the new sanctions against Russia reads as if its is custom made for targeting India. India and China account for some 80% of Russia’s oil exports, but the latter is the number one buyer with 60% of the imports transported through pipelines, whereas India depends on carriers arranged by the Russian side (“shadow fleet”) which are also now under western sanctions.
The press release claims that “The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behaviour.” It is a statement of fact because this is not really about oil, but about geopolitics. Whether Trump will actually press ahead with the oil sanctions remains unclear, since keeping Russian oil out of the world market risks high oil prices which could boomerang on the US economy and be damaging politically for Trump.
Putin’s initial reaction last Thursday was that the oil sanctions are an “unfriendly” act which “will have certain consequences, but they will not significantly affect our economic well-being.” Putin said that Russia’s energy sector feels confident. He added, “This is, of course, an attempt to put pressure on Russia. But no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decides anything under pressure.”
Meanwhile, western hypocrisy broke through the ceiling, as the German chancellor Friedrich Merz who is one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the war is at Trump’s doorstep pleading for a sanctions waiver. Apparently, Germany has been quietly buying Russian oil even while portraying Russia in hostile terms, lest its GDP fell by another 3 percent!
Germany “temporarily” took control of three subsidiaries of the Russian oil company Rosneft (which the US has sanctioned) to secure its energy supply. Interestingly, the UK PM Keir Starmer, the charioteer of the so-called “coalition of the willing” raring to deploy troops in Ukraine to fight Russian forces, is travelling in the same boat as Merz seeking Trump’s waiver!
Such shady behaviour with racial overtones by the Western countries holds lessons for India. Clearly, the effectiveness of the new sanctions against the Russian oil giants will depend on just how zealous the US is in enforcing them through secondary sanctions on entities that deal in Russian oil. If past experience is anything to go by, Washington won’t be able to sustain a full-court press – if for no other reason than that markets will force its hand once oil prices shoot up.
That is to say, thanks to lax enforcement of sanctions, Russian oil will continue to reach the world market. Buyers like India who cut down oil supplies from Russia will end up paying higher prices. By meekly complying with Trump’s diktat, they compromised their interests. The sense of humiliation is such that Delhi shies away from engaging with Trump.
However, as regards long-rage Tomahawk missiles (range: 3000 km) Putin was polite but frank in his reaction, saying, “This is an attempt at escalation. But if such weapons are used to attack Russian territory, the response will be very serious, if not overwhelming. Let them think about it.”
The deputy chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev was even blunt in conveying the Kremlin thinking:
“The US is our enemy, and their talkative ‘peacemaker’ has now fully embarked on the path of war with Russia… this is now his conflict, not the senile Biden’s!… the decisions made are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully sided with the insane Europe.
“But there is also a clear plus in this latest swing of the Trump pendulum: we can strike all the Bandera hideouts with a wide variety of weapons without regard to unnecessary negotiations. And achieve victory precisely where it is only possible: on the ground, not at a desk. Destroying enemies, not concluding meaningless ‘deals’”.
Apparently, the message went home. Trump, before emplaning for Malaysia on his 3-nation Asian tour, made sure that his special envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff extended an invitation to his Russian interlocutor Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund, to go over to Miami for a quiet conversation to talk things over. The two erstwhile businessmen are meeting today.
Meanwhile, Trump has hinted in anticipation of his forthcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday that he may not after all carry out his threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1 in retaliation for China’s vastly expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals. China’s tough stance is paying off.
Similarly, the Kremlin’s blunt threat of retaliation against Tomahawk will be heeded seriously. Putin has many options — Oreshnik capable of Mach 10 speed, for instance, is a hypersonic missile that is also nuclear capable, against which the West has no defence. The weapon has entered into serial production and been supplied to the armed forces.
Again, Russia’s new jet-powered glide bomb gives a significant boost in range and superior resistance to electronic countermeasures. It is capable of hitting Ukraine’s western border. It is also moving to mass production and the West is defenceless against it.
Why the Putin-Trump summit cancelation is terrible news for Ukraine
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | October 24, 2025
There was – or seemed to be – hope for peace for a brief moment. And how deceptive it turned out to be. I was among those cautiously optimistic when we were told just over a week ago that the presidents of Russia and the US, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, had a long and useful phone conversation and were planning to meet in person again.
The ‘Alaska 2.0 summit’, to take place in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, has been called off before it was even properly scheduled, and Russia-US relations have taken further severe hits. Washington has initiated unprecedented sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, which had not been sanctioned before, and dozens of their subsidiaries. All of this accompanied by what seems to be deliberately condescending and offensive rhetoric blaming Russia and its president – and them alone – for the persistent impasse in finding a negotiated solution to the Ukraine conflict – that is, the Western proxy war against Russia.
In reality, of course, it is Washington that can’t stop making U-turns that mess up what could have been a rational if difficult process of making peace. Witness the rather silly way in which Trump and his team have just oscillated between demanding that Ukraine surrender territory not yet taken by Russia and reverting to the pre-Alaska-summit dead-end position that a ceasefire must precede a full peace.
In addition, the Trump administration has been ambiguous at best about another escalation: Trump has denied it rather implausibly, but in reality, Washington seems to have permitted Kiev to carry out long-range strikes with European missiles – in particular, the British Storm Shadow – which include US parts and involve American targeting data: Another serious and provocative escalation.
The one piece of reasonable restraint still in place in Washington at this point is the refusal to transfer Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine (via an eagerly paying NATO-EU Europe, of course). Again, given the second Trump administration’s short but disappointing history, there is no reason to consider this refusal dependable and permanent. Ukraine’s dated leader, Vladimir Zelensky, has already boasted that he has “not yet” got his hands on the Tomahawks. It’s as if Trump enjoys being paraded as fickle and playable by the same man he regularly humiliates in public. What an odd relationship.
The NATO-EU Europeans, meanwhile, have stalled on their much-vaunted plan for an interest-free ‘loan’ – not really the right term for money that will never be paid back – of yet another €140 billion, using frozen Russian assets as pseudo-collateral.
‘Pseudo’, because the dirty little not-quite-secret of the scheme is that in the end, it will be EU taxpayers once again who will really foot the bill. Indeed, for those with eyes to see, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has long admitted as much, if in a venue most of his voters do not read and in terms clearly chosen to obfuscate: “budgetary guarantees from member states… [to] be replaced by collateralization under the EU’s long-term budget.” Translation: You, EU citizens, will pay, but in a way we make obscure enough for you to miss.
For now, the fortuitous inability of the EU to agree on how to spread the rather insane financial and political risks of this double-steal move – from Russia and from EU taxpayers – and ultra-corrupt Ukraine’s brazen demand to get this money in no-questions-asked-just-trust-us mode have delayed the realization of the scheme. That, too, like the US refusal to deliver Tomahawks to Kiev, is a tiny remnant of reason that may not last long. The new deadline set for a decision is December. If Eastern European hardliners and Russophobes, such as Poland’s Donald ‘I love terrorist attacks on vital infrastructure as long as they hit Germany’ Tusk, keep setting the tone, the loan operation to bury the euro’s credibility is likely to go ahead soon.
The EU has certainly not lost its appetite for measures that prolong a meat-grinder war for Ukrainians and damage the economy and general well-being of the inhabitants of NATO-EU-land. The 19th sanctions packet has been launched and hardball methods have been used to cajole resisters inside the EU – Hungary and Slovakia – to submit to a total cut-off of Russian gas and oil. These methods may very well already include more Nord Stream-style terrorist attacks, with refineries processing Russian oil blowing up at an astonishing pace now.
In sum, while official Kiev may celebrate, the news for ordinary Ukrainians is horrible: With the US fully reverting to a proxy-war course and the EU never even thinking about abandoning it, the war is now set to continue into next year. Unless there are further major reversals, Ukraine faces a terrible winter, and after that, a spring that will see renewed Russian ground offensives (at the latest).
Meanwhile, NATO figurehead and professional Trump sycophant Mark Rutte, comfortably seated next to his US boss, has said, in essence, that he does not give a damn about the fact that less than a quarter of Ukrainians want this war to continue. Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller recommends shipping young male Ukrainians who have fled to Poland off to the front. In short, the cannon fodder must flow.
The West started its systematic and reckless policy of exposing Ukraine at the Bucharest summit in 2008, almost 20 years ago. What we see now is that it will not change course even in the face of the horrendous fiasco that policy has already predictably incurred. The mad and vicious strategy of sacrificing Ukraine to damage Russia continues. Worse, the more it fails, the more it is being escalated, in the manner of compulsive gamblers who cannot stop until they have lost absolutely everything. Ukraine’s tragedy is that it is its land and its people they are betting.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
Trump’s Russia sanctions could backfire – former Biden adviser
RT | October 24, 2025
New US sanctions on Russian oil producers could end up benefiting Moscow by driving up global energy prices, a former White House energy adviser has said.
The administration of US President Donald Trump announced this week that it is sanctioning Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, while warning of secondary penalties for companies that continue to do business with them.
Amos Hochstein, who previously served as senior energy policy adviser under former President Joe Biden, told The Financial Times that the move might not have the intended economic impact.
“If prices rise significantly, any revenue loss Russia suffers from reduced sales will be offset by higher prices,” he explained. “And if prices climb too much, Russia profits while American consumers and our allies end up paying more.”
According to the FT, Trump likely sees the sanctions as a less risky alternative to approving deliveries of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. With oil prices currently below the levels seen during Biden’s presidency, Washington appears to believe it has leeway to act without triggering a sharp domestic oil price spike, according to the article published on Friday.
Commenting on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that as a major producer, Russia plays a crucial role in maintaining stability in the global energy markets, calling the current supply-and-demand balance beneficial to both producers and consumers.
“Disrupting this balance is a thankless task – including for those attempting to do so,” he said.
Putin also warned that any use of Tomahawk missiles against Russia would provoke a “truly staggering” response.
Kiev claims that the long-range weapons could be a gamechanger for its war effort, but Russian officials have warned that the use of nuclear-capable weapons, which Moscow says would require input from American military personnel, would cause a major escalation.
Russia-US summit postponed – Putin
RT | October 23, 2025
Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that the planned Budapest summit with US counterpart Donald Trump is being postponed. Speaking to journalists on Thursday, he noted that the proposal was initially made by the American side.
The Russian leader admitted that it would have been a mistake to approach the summit without the necessary preparations, suggesting that a meeting might still take place at a later date. Putin emphasized that dialogue is always better than confrontation, arguments, and the continuation of war.
A Russia-US summit, which was planned to be held in the Hungarian capital, was announced last week by both the Kremlin and the White House after a phone call between Trump and Putin. On Wednesday, however, Trump announced that the meeting would be postponed. On the same day, Washington imposed sanctions on two major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
Commenting on the sanctions, Putin described them as an “unfriendly move” that does not boost Russia-US relations.
At the same time, he noted that the new restrictions would not have a significant impact on the Russian economy.
Putin also stated that the US sanctions are yet another attempt by Washington to exert pressure on Moscow and stressed that “no self-respecting country ever does anything under pressure.”
He further suggested that there are certain people in the US administration that have been encouraging Trump to restrict Russian oil exports and called for considering who these individuals actually work for.
Putin insisted that Russia and the US actually have many areas in which they could cooperate if they would move away from pressure tactics and toward serious conversations about the long term.
George Beebe: US-Russia Agreement to End NATO Expansionism or Accept an Ugly Russian Victory
Glenn Diesen | October 23, 2025
George Beebe is Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute, and the former CIA Director for Russia Analysis. Beebe argues that the window of opportunity for an agreement that ends NATO expansionism is closing, and the alternative will be an ugly Russian victory.
Ukraine conflict now belongs to Trump – ex-Russian president
RT | October 23, 2025
The Ukraine conflict has effectively become US President Donald Trump’s war now that he has positioned himself as an adversary of Moscow, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said.
Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, made the comment after Trump scrapped plans for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin and imposed new sanctions on Russian oil companies – measures the US leader described as a means to pressure Moscow into concessions.
Writing on social media on Thursday, Medvedev suggested that Trump’s next move would likely involve approving the delivery of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kiev, claiming the US president is “now firmly on the warpath against Russia” and “completely aligned with mad Europe” in that regard.
He argued that Trump had likely been pressured by both domestic and international hawks into taking a hardline stance, rather than acting out of ideological conviction as was the case with his predecessor, Joe Biden. “But now it’s his conflict,” Medvedev concluded, adding that Russia must focus on achieving its objectives militarily rather than through negotiations.
Trump has repeatedly blamed Biden for the escalation of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, insisting that the conflict “would never have happened” had he been in office in 2022.
The US president has a record of abrupt foreign policy reversals, including in his handling of the Ukraine crisis. Hungary, where Trump and Putin had agreed to meet for a new summit, has said that preparations for the meeting remain on track despite the recent tensions.
Window of Opportunity for Peace is Closing
John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
Glenn Diesen | October 22, 2025
I had the great pleasure of discussing this with John Mearsheimer and Alexander Mercouris on The Duran, how the window of opportunity for a peaceful settlement is closing fast. Zelensky cannot accept the high demands from Russia. The Europeans will oppose any real diplomacy out of fear that peace would be accompanied by European divisions and the departure of the US. Meanwhile, Russia is growing increasingly pessimistic about any possible peace. As the Ukrainian frontlines collapse and Moscow has no trust in NATO, it will likely take all strategic territory that would make Ukraine a threatening frontline state. The successful efforts to sabotage the Budapest meeting may leave us with two options: a strategic defeat for NATO with the collapse in Ukraine, or escalating to a direct NATO-Russia War.
Ukraine adopts record war budget
RT | October 22, 2025
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has signed a bill boosting the country’s military spending by $7.8 billion, with most of the funds expected to be covered by revenues from frozen Russian assets. The increase comes as Kiev continues to face a record budget deficit and relies on Western funding to sustain operations.
The legislation was passed by the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday and marks the second time this year that lawmakers have expanded military spending. In July, the Rada increased defense allocations by about $9.9 billion. The latest amendment brings the total expenditures for 2025 to roughly $70.7 billion, up from $52.7 billion initially approved in the budget adopted earlier this year.
Ukrainian lawmakers have said that most of the latest increase is expected to be financed by proceeds linked to frozen Russian funds.
On Wednesday, the Rada also voted in favor of the country’s draft budget for 2026, which includes a deficit of over 40%, projecting it will spend about $114 billion while taking in just $68 billion. It notes that all of Kiev’s tax revenue will only be spent on the military, with all other state costs to be covered by financial aid from foreign backers.
Spanish newspaper El Pais has reported that Ukraine currently has enough funds to operate only until April 2026, prompting the EU to consider a €140 billion ($163 billion) “reparations loan” backed by Russian assets held abroad. About €200 billion of Moscow’s frozen reserves are currently held in Belgium.
However, a number of Western officials have opposed the EU-led initiative. Bloomberg has reported that Washington has refused to join the plan, citing market-stability risks, while European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has warned that confiscating Russian state funds could violate international law and undermine trust in the euro.
Moscow has repeatedly denounced any use of its sovereign assets as “theft,” warning of retaliation. Russian officials have also maintained that continued Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict, resulting in further casualties without changing the eventual outcome.
NATO States Say New Weapons Systems Must Be Tested in Ukraine
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 21, 2025
The military leaders of Nordic members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said they are only interested in purchasing weapons that have undergone battlefield testing in Ukraine.
Speaking at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual meeting last week, “For new [supply] chains and new technologies, I’m never going to buy anything that hasn’t worked in Ukraine,” Maj. Gen. Peter Harling Boysen, chief of the Royal Danish Army, explained.
During the panel discussion on Northern Europe, Lt. Gen. Pasi Välimäki, Commander of the Finnish Army, said demonstrations are nice, but weapons that are tested in Ukraine are proven to work.
Since the Russian invasion in 2022, Western and Ukrainian leaders have touted the war as an opportunity for NATO weapon systems to be utilized in battle to test their effectiveness in combat against Russian forces.
In September, Alexus Grynkewich, a US Air Force general who serves as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, urged more weapons makers to test their military equipment in Ukraine.
Latvian Secretary of the National Security Council Aivars Puriņš said that throughout the war in Ukraine, Western states have discovered that weapons platforms are not functional in actual conflict.
“We have had too many stories, I think, over these years in Ukraine [where] the best technology solutions were deployed, and suddenly they didn’t work as they were kind of supposed to be and that’s the logic we should not be repeating,” he told Breaking Defense.
NATO has viewed the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to weaken Russia. Using Kiev as a proxy has come at a huge cost to Ukrainians. Moscow offered to end the war within a few months and allow Kiev to keep all of Ukraine except the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
However, President Zelensky’s Western backers urged him to reject the Russian proposal and offered to flood Kiev with billions in aid and arms.
Ukraine has lost at least hundreds of thousands of troops, millions of people have been displaced, and Russia is now demanding Kiev cede at least 20% of its territory.
Rick Sanchez: War Propaganda & Suffocating Censorship Weaken the West
Glenn Diesen | October 19, 2025
Award-winning journalist Rick Sanchez has worked for CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and RT, which gives him a unique perspective on the Western and Russian media. Sanchez outlines how the war propaganda and rise of censorship across the West prevent us from pursuing rational policies.


