The Kremlin is projecting the narrative of a powerful Russia and a powerful Russian President Vladimir Putin to conceal the real weaknesses and limitations of Russia's capabilities and distract from Russia's battlefield failures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine over three years ago with the intent, among other things, of stealing its children.


Russia dedicated staggering amounts of manpower and equipment to several major offensive efforts in Ukraine in 2024, intending to degrade Ukrainian defenses and seize the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

The United States can use the enormous challenges Russia will face in 2025 as leverage to secure critical concessions in ongoing negotiations to end the war by continuing and even expanding military support to Ukraine.

Some peace deals lead to peace, others to more war. The Minsk II deal aimed to end Russia’s limited invasion of Ukraine in 2015 but instead laid the groundwork for the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.

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Iran Update, May 23, 2025

Iran may try to secure an interim nuclear deal before negotiating a comprehensive nuclear agreement to delay or prevent a US or Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and the imposition of snapback sanctions by the E3 (the United Kingdom, France, and Germany), as CTP-ISW previously assessed.

Africa File, May 22, 2025: SAF Advances Across Sudan Despite RSF Drone Strikes

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have made incremental progress against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in several areas of Sudan since mid-May despite RSF counterattacks and the RSF’s drone campaign against Port Sudan. The SAF renewed attacks against the RSF in central Sudan along a key highway linking central and western Sudan and made gains in northern Sudan.

Russian Occupation Update, May 22, 2025

A bipartisan group of US senators introduced a resolution on May 20 calling for Russia to return all the Ukrainian children it has deported before finalizing any peace agreement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.[1] The resolution acknowledges that Russia’s widescale deportation of Ukrainian children “demonstrates the intent of the government of the Russian Federation to erase the Ukrainian nation and identity” and condemns Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the disproportionate harm Russia has inflicted on children.