Zelenskyy: We cannot see and hear any offer for peace from Putin.

Putin is going to use the meeting in China as permission to continue his war. He tries to show that he doesn't care about the pressure on him. But it works. 1/ Zelenskyy: The situation for the Russian economy is quite complicated, and everyone who is dealing with Russia also has to understand that we are going to talk about the tariffs. 2/

Putin hasn’t just found partners—he’s flaunting them. In Beijing, he stood with Xi, Modi, Iran’s Pezeshkian, and Kim, showing a bloc that fuels his war and challenges Western dominance. CNN: Europe now feels in the firing line.

1/ Russia’s war lifelines: Chinese & Indian money, Iranian drones & weapons, North Korean manpower. This bloc keeps Moscow fighting after 3.5 years. Isolation hasn’t broken Putin—it gave him new leverage.

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Ukraine knocked out up to 20% of Russia’s refining—over 1M barrels/day, The Economist.

Since early Aug it hit more than a dozen refineries and depots. On Aug 30 drones struck Krasnodar and Syzran supplying Russian units. In 2025, 40% of UA long-range targets are refineries.

1/ Forecourts across Russia run dry, queues grow. Wholesale petrol prices jumped +54% since Jan 2025, hitting records. Moscow banned gasoline exports and ordered rationing in some regions. Jan–Jul budget deficit: $61.4B. Strikes now cover an 800 km arc from Ryazan to Volgograd.

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I knew Daria. Students like her are the reason I came back to Ukraine, the reason I am building a university.

She embodied the Ukraine I imagine — because Ukraine is its people. People like Daria. 1/ Daria was killed at the front. She was our student at KSE Univeristy and chose to join Azov to defend Ukraine.

We are incredibly proud of her. And it hurts, unbearably, for me and for all of us. 2/

Macron: Russia has lost 1M soldiers, either dead or wounded, and has taken over a considerable portion of Ukrainian territory. Russia does not have the right.

Russia is continuing to send soldiers to the front to try and win over a few more kilometers. 1/ Macron: Russia is fighting an immoral war. Discussions are only possible if we can have very strong peace guarantees for Ukrainian people.

Those conditions are absolutely essential for a ceasefire or a peace agreement or an armistice. 2/

NSJ: The U.S. has failed for 30 years to create a clear strategy to deter Russia, relying on “resets” instead of using strong military and strategic power.

Since 1991, U.S. policy has focused on relations, not deterring Russian expansion. 1/ During the Cold War, US contained USSR, using hard power, alliances, and aiming for the Soviet collapse.

Under Putin, Russia rearmed and pursued imperial goals, exploiting U.S. inaction and Europe’s Nord Stream reliance. 2/

Nataliya Gumenyuk for Foreign Affairs: The Aug 15 Alaska summit didn’t end the war. Putin offered no credible terms; Trump met him without Ukraine at the table. Ukrainians expect a long fight and thinner U.S. support.

1/ Russia hits cities almost nightly; the front runs 750 miles. On Aug 28, a strike on Kyiv killed 22 in a five-story block. Some nights bring 500+ drones/missiles; that night Ukraine shot down 563 drones and 26 missiles.

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Putin: We have always opposed Ukraine becoming a NATO member, but we have never objected to its membership in the EU.

Every country has the right to choose its own security system, this also applies to Ukraine, but not at the expense of another country’s security. 1/ Putin: Every country must have security guarantees, including Ukraine, but this is not related to territorial exchanges.

We are not fighting for territories, but for people’s rights to speak their own language [Russian].

If people expressed their will to be part of Russia, that opinion must be respected. 2/

Finnish President Stubb told Trump and Zelenskyy that Finland "found a solution in 1944" and can help Ukraine in 2025.

Finland ceded 10% of its land to Russia but kept its independence and democracy, unlike many other former Russian territories — The Economist. 1/ Stubb said Finland "still feel we won" despite losing territory. In 1944, with 21 years of independence and under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Finland faced Stalin's invasion.

Led by Mannerheim, they balanced fighting and accepting a "bitter peace" to keep independence. 2/

CNN: The US had been preparing Ukraine for an energy warfare even before the start of the war in February 2022.

Before Russia's 2022 invasion, the U.S. helped Ukraine disconnect from Russia's grid and connect to Europe's, securing energy for the winters. 1/ Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar contributed energy resources, including Saudi Arabia’s $300 million package.

Russia has launched nearly 3,000 attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this year, up from hundreds previously. 2/

Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian marine Vladyslav Zadorin lost 60 kg, his gallbladder, and nearly his toes in almost 2 years of Russian captivity. Russians captured him on day 1 in 2022 at Snake Island and moved him through 7 prisons in Russia and occupied Ukraine.

1/ Russians stripped new POWs and ran them through a gauntlet: batons, stun guns, brass knuckles, glass bottles. They electrocuted every body part, set dogs on men, forced fights. They smashed bottles over Zadorin’s head and broke 3 vertebrae with a hammer.

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Putin is back on the global stage after Alaska summit, says NYT. At the Sept 1 SCO summit in Tianjin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi embraced him, rode in his limo, and held hands in public.

In 2022 they criticized his war. Now they show Moscow is reintegrated.

1/ The summit’s final communiqué never mentioned Ukraine’s war, even while listing other conflicts. Ukraine’s MFA called it surprising. The silence showed how Putin has eased isolation, even as his troops still fight in Europe’s largest war since WWII.

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European allies doubt Trump’s peace deal will end Russia’s war, warning Moscow will keep hybrid attacks.

A “coalition of the willing” may guarantee Ukraine’s security with troops from Britain and France, plus financial support from Germany and Poland, Foreign Policy. 1/ A senior European security source says Russia is trying to erode coalition confidence by casting the West as aggressors and highlighting war’s costs.

Troop deployments could trigger Russian false flags, like blaming Ukraine for “dirty bombs” to justify breaking peace. 2/

Putin: For a long time we avoided strikes on civilian energy infrastructure, esp. in winter, while Ukraine hit ours. Then we responded—seriously.

[False. Russia began bombing Ukraine’s civilian energy in Sept 2022. No Ukrainian strikes then] 1/ Putin: We can cooperate with U.S. partners at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, even with Ukraine—work together, all three, if conditions allow.

[Russia seized the plant in March 2022, turned it into a base, and endangered reactors by shelling nearby.] 2/

In Russia, 12-year-old girl Masha Moskaleva painted missiles hitting a Ukrainian family and wrote: “No war. No Putin.” – Die Welt

A classmate snitched on her, Russians jailed her father, Aleksei. On New Year’s Eve, masked men stormed their flat—smashing walls and beating him

1/ FSB interrogators slammed Aleksei’s head against a wall under Putin’s portrait.

They blasted the anthem, locked him in a 2-meter cell, forced him to stand 16 hours a day, and left him with rats crawling from the toilet. 2/

Reuters: EU will work on using €210B frozen Russian assets for Ukraine. Kaja Kallas: confiscation now is “not politically realistic.”

But Belgium (holding most assets) rejected it. FM Prevot: “Belgium is against any confiscation” - SCMP
1/ Reuters: Kallas said Russia will never see the assets again unless it fully compensates Ukraine for damages, and the EU needs an “exit strategy” on their use.

Russia signaled it could accept use if part is spent on territories it controls.

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Reuters: Russia’s Ust-Luga oil port will run at in of half normal capacity in September after Ukrainian drone strikes damaged pipelines.

Repairs have no clear timeline.
1/ The strikes earlier hit the Unecha station in Bryansk, disrupting flows to Ust-Luga and the Druzhba pipeline that supplies Belarus, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Slovakia says Druzhba is only partly back in test mode.

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Yesterday, Ursula von der Leyen’s lost GPS signals while approaching Bulgaria

“The whole airport area GPS went dark” said one of the officials

Russian jamming blinded navigation systems, forcing the pilot to circle for an hour and land manually using paper maps. - FT

1/ GPS jamming and spoofing, once limited to military use, is now deployed by Russia to disrupt civilian traffic.

Thirteen EU states warned Brussels it risks causing an air disaster.

The Commission confirmed von der Leyen’s plane faced jamming in Bulgaria, suspected as Russian. 2/

Bolton: Chances for peace in Ukraine are worse than before the Alaska summit. Putin ignores Trump, escalates attacks on civilians, makes no concessions. At the SCO he blamed NATO, using it to justify invasion and seek to restructure NATO while aiming for control of Ukraine. 1/ Bolton: 3.5 years ago we should have built a NATO strategy to achieve its goal of full restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Biden failed to do this. The only acceptable outcome, or Russia and others will see that you can get away with aggression. 2/

White House believes European leaders publicly back Trump's Ukraine peace efforts while secretly undermining progress made since the Alaska summit.

Trump aides claim they push Ukraine toward unrealistic territorial concessions and expecting America to bear costs, Axios. 1/ Treasury Department tasked with compiling European sanctions list against Russia, including complete oil/gas purchase cessation and secondary tariffs on India and China. 2/

Ukraine once again imposed sanctions on Russia's oil refineries.

Ukraine struck the Krasnodar refinery, which accounts for 1.1% of Russia's total oil production, the Syzran refinery, which accounts for 3%, and the Aleksinsky chemical plant with drones. 1/ Krasnodar oil refinery accounts for 1.1% of Russia's total oil production.

Ukraine hit it for the 1st time since the war began. There were at least 3 strikes, according to eyewitnesses. 2/