Knowing that he won’t ‘get’ the whole Ukraine….
Is Russia’s Putin now trying to ‘scare’ the EU/NATO from putting ‘boots on the ground’ after any cease-fire thus prohibing Russia from another foray into Ukraine without starting WWIII?
Russia is using the same comments about Finland ( a New NATO Member) that it used against Ukraine before it attacked there….
Analysts have linked major attacks to important geopolitical events, such as phone calls between President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and rounds of direct Russian and Ukrainian negotiations this year in Istanbul.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, has found that Russia fires larger numbers of drones and missiles preceding or following such events, suggesting that Russian strategists see a diplomatic signaling role in the attacks, even as civilians are routinely killed.
An analysis by The New York Times of Russian strike data from the Ukrainian military shows that after five of the six phone calls between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin from February to July this year, Russia fired larger-than-average barrages at Ukraine, sometimes dramatically so.
The day after a call on July 3, for example, Russia launched 550 drones and missiles. That volley was far above the average of 118 munitions launched by Russia per day in the first six months of this year.
Mr. Trump has himself addressed the timing of Russian strikes. After one phone call with the Russian president, Mr. Trump said, referring to his wife, Melania: “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation.’ She said, ‘Oh, really? Another city was just hit.’”
Before the latest negotiations over the war commenced, military analysts warned that peace talks might usher in a bloodier phase of the war. The two armies, they said, might jockey for position before front lines are frozen, and the two governments might try to gain leverage at the negotiating table….
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“Putin knows what he is doing,” Katarina Mathernova, the E.U. ambassador to Ukraine, wrote on Facebook. Ms. Mathernova, who toured the site on Monday, said, “Putin is deliberately targeting the country’s lifelines — its government, its energy, its people.”…
Wash. Post….
This is what Russian attacks sound like in Ukraine…
ISW…..Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 8, 2025
- Russian Security Council Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev directly threatened Finland and used language that directly mirrors the Kremlin’s false justifications for its invasions of Ukraine.
- Medvedev’s threat against Finland is not unique but rather part of an ongoing Kremlin effort to threaten NATO states and justify future Russian aggression.
- Russia continues to expand its defense industrial base (DIB) and take measures to safeguard defense industrial enterprises against long-range Ukrainian strikes.
- Russia is also reportedly increasing its production of FPVs with fiber optic cables, which Russian forces have successfully leveraged in recent months to achieve some effects of battlefield air interdiction (BAI) in Ukraine.
- The Kremlin appears set to institutionalize its long-held practice of torturing and abusing Ukrainian civilian prisoners and prisoners of war (POWs).
- Ukrainian forces advanced in northern Sumy Oblast and near Lyman. Russian forces advanced in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area.
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“That is why the Russian president has for months sidestepped Trump’s proposals to freeze the fighting with a territorial compromise that the U.S. thought would be attractive for Moscow. Instead, the Kremlin is sticking to its maximalist demands, which would effectively make Ukraine its vassal and change the balance of power in Europe.”
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Daily Kos grunt Report for Today….