Vladimir Putin has apparently decided that escalating the war is the surest way to force Ukraine to the negotiating table, on his terms, and that Donald Trump is unlikely to lift a finger to strengthen Kyiv’s defences, according to people close to the Kremlin.
Since the two leaders met in Anchorage last month, a summit that looked more like a photo op than diplomacy, Russia has ramped up its bombardments on military and civilian targets alike. Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected Putin’s demand for yet more territory in eastern Ukraine, and Moscow responded in kind: pounding Ukraine’s energy grid and other critical infrastructure.

The Kremlin came away from Alaska convinced that Trump has no appetite for deeper involvement. To Moscow, this was a green light.
Trump, in his usual blustering fashion, expressed “frustration” with Putin’s behaviour and dangled the threat of “tougher sanctions”, though only after making it clear that Europe should act first. He then suggested G7 partners slap tariffs on China and India for daring to buy Russian gas, a demand as likely to unify allies as his infamous NATO speeches. In Brussels, meanwhile, the EU is cooking up yet another round of sanctions and promising to accelerate its retreat from Russian LNG.

For Putin, this is confirmation that Washington’s restraint is a gift: an invitation to grind Ukraine down in a war of attrition until Kyiv is too exhausted to resist.
At Anchorage, Putin offered to freeze the line of contact in the south if Ukraine pre-emptively surrendered unoccupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, while capping its military and abandoning NATO ambitions. Zelenskiy said no. Putin’s response? More drones, more missiles, more bombs.
The results are brutal: in just one month since those “talks”, Russia has launched 3,500 drones, nearly 190 missiles and more than 2,500 bombs. Government buildings and residential blocks in Kyiv and Kharkiv have been hit, in some of the largest strikes since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Yet, despite the pyrotechnics, territorial progress remains sluggish. Even after redeploying 100,000 troops to attack Pokrovsk, Moscow has little to show. In fact, Ukrainian forces have even clawed back ground in Donetsk.
Ukraine, for its part, is striking back at Russia’s energy infrastructure, targeting oil refineries, pumping stations, and even the Primorsk terminal on the Baltic. It claims to have disrupted facilities covering nearly half of Russia’s refining capacity, though the reality is less dramatic. Still, the symbolism is unmistakable.

Two weeks after Alaska, Putin declared he could see “light at the end of the tunnel”, before adding that military means were still very much on the table. Kremlin insiders admit he took note of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza campaign, which has drawn far less Western outrage than Russia’s war. Moscow sees hypocrisy and opportunity.

The reality is sobering: Putin wants visible wins before winter. Failing that, he’ll resort to nuclear bluster and mass bombardments. Trump, meanwhile, prefers to shout about tariffs and sanctions while making it clear that America will only act once Europe has gone first.
As Vita Spivak of Gatehouse Advisory puts it, “Putin wants to remind Trump and the Europeans that he can always make things worse.” The strategy is clear: terrorise, escalate, then negotiate from a position of strength.
And so the war grinds on: Russia bombing, Ukraine resisting, Trump dithering, and Europe paying the bill.