Russia: Weekly Summary (December 01-7, 2025)

I read a bunch of blog posts this week about Russia and the shape of things around it. Some pieces were short and sharp, others long and slow. I would describe them as pieces of a puzzle that sometimes fit and sometimes don’t. To me, it feels like watching someone fix a busted car on the side of the road while arguing with the tow truck driver. Messy. Loud. Important.

Military front: drones, planes, tanks, and command

There’s a steady drumbeat about the war itself. A lot of writers circle the same few images: drones buzzing, planes burning, old tanks wheeled out of storage, and commanders yelling into radios that may or may not be working. If you want the gritty blow-by-blow, Tom Cooper keeps returning to the nuts-and-bolts of air and ground operations. His two-part series on command problems reads like a field notebook. He points at bad orders and slow reactions and says plainly that this costs lives. I’d say his tone is impatient — he wants accountability and quick fixes, not speeches.

On the hard-technology side, David Axe has been tracking the slow motion wrecking of the Russian aviation force in Crimea and elsewhere. One post details how Ukrainian drones and missiles have ripped through the Black Sea aviation regiment, leaving it a shadow of its former self. Another notes the decline of the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier and the fate of the MiG fighters once tied to it. To me, it feels like watching someone try to keep a rotting boat afloat by bailing with a teacup. You get the sense of resource mismatch. Russia still shows numbers — more armored vehicles than in 2022, as Axe reports — but those numbers hide the story. Old hulls make for a big yard sale; they aren’t the same as modern, reliable punch.

There’s also this small, almost comic detail that signals bigger problems: the use of black-market Starlink terminals on drones. Robert Zimmerman mentions it almost in passing, but that detail matters. Satellite comms are becoming as ordinary and as necessary as a phone line in a pickup truck. When forces improvise like this, it’s a sign of both adaptability and desperation.

And then there’s the hypersonic thing. David Axe again — writing about Kinzhal missiles missing by miles. Hypersonic sounds terrifying on a brochure. On the ground it sometimes looks like a blown fuse. I would describe the current weapons narrative as: big words on paper, mixed results in practice. Sort of like a flagship gadget that keeps overheating.

A repeated gripe is command. Back to Tom Cooper: he argues leadership trust is frayed. He tells stories of commanders replaced for questioning orders, of micromanagement that turns simple moves into disasters. To me, that reads like a restaurant where the head chef won’t let line cooks do anything without approval. The food gets cold; the customers leave.

On the tactical side, some of the freshest dispatches are very local. David Axe describes a fight for Myrnohrad where Ukrainian drones and artillery stopped an encirclement attempt. It reads like a street fight where a well-timed neighbor’s bucket of water puts out a fire that could have swept the block. Tactical successes like that matter a lot. They slow big plans, they cost armor and men, and they remind readers that the front lines are still very much active.

Diplomacy, peace plans, and energy deals — the political soup

Politics runs alongside the fighting, and this week it feels like a soap opera with oil tankers and oligarchs as guest stars. There’s a peace plan floating around — promoted in some quarters and called dangerous in others. Several writers point out that parts of the plan would ask Ukraine to give up territory and make concessions that look like handing keys to the neighbor who’s been stealing from you.

Dave Keating is blunt about European leaders playing along with a bad plan because they don’t want to tangle with certain U.S. political figures. He frames it as a kind of forced dance. I’d say the imagery fits: Europe steps in time even when the music smells off. France and Germany privately telling Ukraine not to trust the U.S. — that message, repeated by Dean Blundell, sounded like a scene shift. When allies start giving each other side-eye, the room gets smaller.

There is also a clear strand about energy. Tom Cooper writes about attacks on shadow-fleet tankers near Turkey and the toll this has on Black Sea oil routes. He pairs that with Rosneft’s struggles under sanctions. Oil isn’t just a commodity here. It’s a scoreboard and a weapon. To me, it feels like watching someone tap the soda machine to make the coins fall out. You can do it sometimes, but eventually the machine jams or someone calls security.

Then there are the back-channel meetings and deals. Dean Blundell, Olga Lautman, and Zev Shalev all flag a pattern: Trump-era envoys and business types in Moscow, energy negotiations, and handshakes that smell like give-and-take where the take is mostly for Moscow. Seve Witkoff’s reported trip to Moscow, Jared Kushner’s meetings, stories about Lev Parnas — it reads like the same cast rotating through different scenes. I’d say there’s a recurring line in these pieces: geopolitics plus private business equals a blurry line. That’s an old trick, by the way. Russia’s been comfortable mixing business with statecraft for a long time.

The political pieces also itch at NATO’s future. Dave Keating and others argue that NATO is becoming less effective, more rhetorical than real. It’s like a neighborhood watch where half the neighbors don’t show up to meetings. When major players wink at risky deals, smaller countries think twice about relying on the guard dog.

Information warfare — AI, disinfo, and the slow erosion of truth

Several posts return to influence operations. Olga Lautman goes deep on networks that have promoted far-right movements around the West. She traces figures and groups back to Kremlin funding and strategy. It reads like a how-to manual on political engineering. The thesis is not new, but the details keep building. To me, it feels like finding the same thread in different sweaters — once you see it, you can’t ignore it.

There’s an even more modern worry in Dr. Colin W.P. Lewis’s piece. He writes about AI and coordinated campaigns, and how speed now matters more than truth. Deepfakes, AI-generated content, and rapid amplification make it easy for hostile narratives to spread faster than fact checks can catch up. That sentence — speed wins — keeps popping up. I would describe it as the new arms race. Not missiles this time, but storytelling engines.

This ties back to reporting on the U.S. political scene. Multiple writers link the rhetoric of the new U.S. National Security Strategy to language that either echoes or flatters Kremlin narratives. Zev Shalev, Dean Blundell, and Olga Lautman see the same alarm: messaging from official Washington that looks, by choice or accident, like it helps Moscow. That amplifies the information war because when official statements match hostile narratives, the hostile narratives win half the battle by default. It’s a weird, long echo chamber.

Domestic moves in Russia: tech bans, universities, and money

Away from battlefields and embassy halls, there’s more. Russia’s internal politics and economy show little bright spots. Michael J. Tsai points out new app bans — FaceTime, Snapchat, Roblox. The official line is crime and child safety. The effect is practical: fewer outside connections, more nudges to domestic platforms. It’s like closing a window because the draft is messy and then trying to pretend the room gets warmer.

On the academic front, Brian Krebs dives into a staggering essay mill tied to a large private university and a Kremlin-connected oligarch. The operation pumped ads and money into cheating systems and, in the process, funded activities tied to tech and drones. Drones to diplomas, he calls it. That phrase sticks because it’s weirdly literal and kinda grim. It suggests an economy where money and influence slip through every seam.

Another economic note: Rosneft’s troubles. Tom Cooper explains how sanctions plus damaged production have hollowed out revenue streams. Energy is central to Russia’s leverage. When that wobble shows up, the ripple is big. It affects politics, oligarchs, and even local livelihoods.

Crime, laundering, and the oligarch chorus

Then there’s the seamier side. Justin Ling tells a story about very organized crime running out of Trump Tower — money laundering, illegal gambling, threats. The detail that it served the wealthy from the former Soviet Union makes it sound like a cross-border club with its own rules. You get a sense of old habits that didn’t get left behind in the Soviet era; they just moved addresses.

The criminal threads tie directly into political threads. When oligarch money finds its way into Western business or into political fundraising, it changes the tempo of decisions. That link appears in more than one piece this week. It’s not just gossip. It’s how influence gets bought and sometimes formalized.

Converging disagreements: where writers clash

The set of posts isn’t unanimous. Plenty of writers agree Russia is messy and dangerous, but they disagree on the best move. Some stress relentless military pressure. Others warn about making bad peace deals. Some blame specific actors in Washington for helping Russia’s interests. Others argue the West should be quieter and smarter.

For instance, Tom Cooper wants better military leadership and clearer tactics. He’s blunt: improve command or keep losing personnel. On the political side, Dave Keating blames diplomatic dancing and cowardice. Olga Lautman warns of long-term influence operations that will take years to undo. The differences matter because each prescription pulls the West in a different direction: military urgency, diplomatic caution, or domestic resilience.

A recurring tension: how much to talk about corruption, pardons, and political theater in the West while the bullets still fly. Some writers treat the scandals and pardons as central. Others see them as distractions from basic defense needs. Both sides have a point. It’s like arguing whether to fix the roof first or stop the flood in the cellar. You need both, but you can’t solve both at once.

Themes that loop back, again and again

A few themes repeat so often they almost become choruses:

• Drones and asymmetry. Small tech keeps punching big holes. Ukraine’s drone strikes and tactics show that nimble, low-cost systems matter a lot.
• Influence operations. Russia’s long game is still pushing narratives, funding movements, and using soft power in blunt ways.
• Energy leverage. Oil and gas remain Russia’s strongest currency in international bargaining.
• U.S. politics matter. Moves from Washington — policy, pardons, strategies — change how Europe and others react.
• Organizational rot. Whether in militaries, universities, or markets, weak institutions open doors for bad outcomes.

These aren’t new, but the posts this week show them in sharper colors. They show how one event feeds the next. A stolen election story feeds a propaganda line. A quiet meeting in Moscow feeds an energy contract. A drone strike feeds a headline and then a strategy discussion. It’s all connected like a chain of kitchen lights: knock one off and the rest flicker.

Who should read which posts — a tiny reading map

If you want battlefield detail, start with David Axe and Tom Cooper. They give the tactical and operational texture. If you want politics and energy deals, scan Dean Blundell, Olga Lautman, and Zev Shalev. For influence operations and the long game, Olga Lautman and Dr. Colin W.P. Lewis are worth your time. If you like investigative twists about money and crime, check Justin Ling and Brian Krebs.

I’d say that’s a small starter pack. Read one, then another. The stories echo and push against each other. You’ll notice small contradictions and, delightfully, some confirmations.

Minor tangents that still matter

A few side notes stuck with me. Russia’s ban on apps is less dramatic than it sounds, because people use VPNs and workarounds. Still, it’s symbolic. It’s not only about locking kids away from Roblox. It’s about re-wiring civic life.

Another tangent: the essay mill tied to a university that also has military tech connections. That’s one of those stories that makes you blink. It shows how soft things — grades, diplomas — can be monetized into hard outcomes like weaponization. Weird chain. Strange loop.

And a political tangent that keeps circling: pardons and legal moves in the U.S. Some writers tie these actions to Russian interests. Whether those ties are direct, cynical, or accidental is hotly argued. But the effect is the same: these legal and political choices shift perceptions abroad.

Reading the week like a neighbor reading the paper

If I were to put this week’s output into plain neighborhood terms, it’d be like this: there’s a house across the way with a noisy, unpredictable tenant. The tenant still blocks the street sometimes with a broken-down truck. People argue about whether to call the police or try to negotiate. Someone is quietly buying gravel from the local hardware store and another neighbor is making deals with the tenant’s cousin. A local club that used to mediate disputes looks tired and talks a lot but does little. Meanwhile, a kid on a bicycle keeps finding creative ways to slow the truck down.

That is messy and a little too familiar. You see the same patterns: back channels, improvisation, influence, cheap tech making a big difference, and big policy moves that ripple down into small lives.

Little things that nag

A couple of small points nag at the back of my head. One: numbers can lie. Russia’s headline of 21,000 armored vehicles hides how many are useful. Another: official statements can be performative. A paper NSS or a press line can change how people behave, even when it’s not backed up by credible action. And lastly: speed matters. Not just in drones or AI, but in narrative. The faster a story spreads, the harder it is to put the genie back in the bottle.

If you’re curious — and you should be curious — go read the longer posts. They have charts, photos, and sometimes interviews. They dig in where I only skim. I only hint here. If you like detail, follow the names. They’re the ones doing the legwork.

There’s a kind of rhythm to this week’s pieces. Violence and diplomacy alternate. Tech and money thread through both. The writing ranges from furious to forensic, and sometimes both at once. I would describe this mix as uneven but useful. Like a stew with too many cooks, it still keeps you warm.

If one line sticks, it’s this: the chessboard is changing, and not only because of bigger pieces. Little pieces — drones, AI posts, ad buys, essay mills, and under-the-table meetings — move the board more than people want to admit. That’s a quiet, persistent worry. It’s also where new strategies might come from. Like tinkering in a garage, small fixes and clever hacks could tilt things. Or they could let the car die on the roadside.

Read the linked posts if you want the trenches, the cables, and the receipts. They’re there. Each author carries a different flashlight. Follow the light you like.