The Sino-Russian relationship is closer and more interconnected in 2025 than it has ever been.

Kateryna Stepanenko examines the status of Russia and Ukraine's current AI drone efforts.


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.

Latest from ISW

Iran Update Special Report, June 14, 2025, Evening Edition

The Israeli air campaign is driving generational turnover in Iranian military leadership. The IDF has continued to target Iranian military targets across Iran, likely to degrade Iran’s retaliatory capabilities. This update contains early battle damage assessments (BDA) of several Iranian facilities, including Natanz, Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center, and several military bases.

 

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 14, 2025

Russian forces continue to make marginal territorial gains east of Novopavlivka as Russian forces attempt to advance into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and toward the settlement from three tactical directions. Geolocated footage published on June 13 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in central Horikhove (east of Novopavlivka) and likely seized the settlement.

Iran Update Special Report, June 14, 2025, Morning Edition

Iran has used significantly fewer munitions in its response to Israel than originally planned because the IDF destroyed and damaged missile launchers and silos that Iran planned to use to retaliate against Israel. This is consistent with CTP-ISW’s observation that degrading Iran’s retaliatory capabilities was one objective of the initial Israeli strikes on June 12.

Iran Update Special Edition: Israeli Strikes on Iran, June 13, 2025, 2:00 PM ET

Israel launched an air campaign targeting the Iranian nuclear program and regime leadership on June 12 to “degrade, destroy, and remove [the] threat” of Iranian weaponization of its nuclear program. The June 12 to 13 strikes are the opening volley in a weekslong air campaign, according to multiple Israeli officials.