However, Trump’s initiative to hold a meeting in Budapest, though initially supported by Russia (the parties had already discussed a complex route through Iran, Turkey and Syria that Putin could take), had fallen through by October 21. This emerged after telephone conversations between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The underlying reason was the same: Moscow’s unwillingness to stop the war.

On October 27, Lavrov stated in an interview with the Hungarian YouTube channel Ultrahang that Trump, “under pressure from European hawks,” had shifted from the idea of a “sustainable, durable peace” between Russia and Ukraine – the main outcome of Anchorage – to the idea of a ceasefire. 

Trump, in turn, after it became clear that the Budapest meeting was off, leaked details of the Anchorage talks to the press, along with an explanation for why they were abruptly interrupted. Putin had supposedly lectured Trump about history instead of discussing the actual situation, and Trump became so irritated that he not only broke off the talks but also canceled the dinner.

The failure of the negotiations resulted in Trump imposing sanctions on Russia’s largest oil producers – Rosneft and Lukoil – on October 22. This should significantly reduce Russian fiscal revenues, at least in the medium term (Trump specified six months as the length of the sanctions on October 23). Still, it remains to be seen how these sanctions will work.

Though India has sharply reduced its purchases of Russian oil and China appears to be promising to do the same, it is entirely possible that fuel from these Russian energy giants will be sold through shell companies not covered by the sanctions. This issue was not officially raised during the talks between Trump and Xi last week, however, and the US has generally abandoned many of its earlier demands toward the Chinese.

Another potential means of influencing Kremlin behavior remains the sale by Washington of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine and an alliance of European intermediaries (Trump claims to have threatened Putin with sending 2,000 Tomahawks to Ukraine). However, despite the green light from the Pentagon, an official decision has still not been made, and overall, it is hardly enough to change the balance of power in the war.

Tomahawks are a rather outdated weapon, and countering them has been one of the main tasks of Soviet – and later Russian – missile defense systems for the past four decades. Though the advanced, medium-range missiles previously supplied to Ukraine resulted in painful blows for the Russian army, they failed to change the situation fundamentally. By contrast, the shorter-range but much more numerous HIMARS missiles helped the Ukrainian army to maintain battlefield momentum for at least a year.

Situation at the front

On October 26, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov briefed Putin on the situation at the front. In the portion that was publicly released, he reported the encirclement of Ukrainian army units in the Pokrovsk agglomeration and near Kupiansk; street fighting in Siversk and Kostiantynivka; and the final assault on Yampil, a village near Lyman.

This information contradicted reports not only from Ukrainian sources but also from Russian voenkory. Overall, of the 10 points in Gerasimov’s briefing concerning the front, two correspond to reality, one is partially true, another is impossible to verify and six points – or 60% of the information – are pure falsehoods. Moreover, they represent the most important parts of the briefing.

Gerasimov focused on areas of the front where Russian troops have indeed made some progress over the past two weeks and where new threats have emerged for the Ukrainian army. The most significant of these are the closing of the Russian “pincers” in the Pokrovsk area – here Gerasimov’s briefing got closer to reality in the following week – the envelopment of Siversk from the northwest, the start of street fighting in Kostiantynivka around October 29 and the envelopment of Lyman from the northwest, which brought the Russian army closer to Sviatohirsk.

On October 29, Putin made a surprise statement at the Central Military Clinical Hospital – clearly not coordinated with the Ukrainian leadership – suggesting that Ukrainian and foreign journalists be allowed “to see the encircled Ukrainian military personnel” for a few hours. The proposal was immediately rejected by the Ukrainian side as a provocation.

As for the situation on the battlefield, the Ukrainian army is in a dire position in Pokrovsk. The Russian army has managed to send at least a hundred soldiers in small groups into the western and central parts of the town, effectively cutting off access to the main roads westward and hunting down small groups of Ukrainian troops, including drone operators, who form the backbone of Ukraine’s defense.

Whereas on October 20 Ukrainian forces had driven Russian troops out of the city’s railway station, located in the very center, by October 26 the Russian army had occupied the entire western part of Pokrovsk and on October 28 raised its flag on the stele at the western entrance. Despite upbeat reports from the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces, by October 25 the Ukrainian General Staff assessed the situation in Pokrovsk as critical. One of Ukraine’s leading newspapers, Ukrainska Pravda, even published a lengthy article based on interviews with soldiers from two brigades, who stated that the infantry in the “pocket” is effectively cut off from command and control and that everything they need must be brought in on foot due to constant enemy drone activity. Evacuating the wounded, they claimed, was practically impossible.

Ukrainian troops have found themselves in similar situations before – in Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Vuhledar and Sudzha – which underscores the need for a swift withdrawal when the closing edges of a “pocket” cannot be broken. By November 3, Russian troops were already in control of at least 80% of Pokrovsk, though both sides continued to publish maps shading control in ways favorable to themselves.

On October 29, it was announced that special forces from Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence would be deployed to Pokrovsk to “clear the city of Russian troops.” However, a helicopter landing directly on the front line on November 1 ended in failure – 11 paratroopers were immediately killed by Russian drones.

By the evening of November 2, the “neck” of the pocket, where there were definitely no Russian troops, had narrowed to less than 3 kilometers, though the “gray zone” through which a breakout might still be attempted remained quite wide – up to 10 kilometers. For several days now, numerous calls have been heard in Ukraine to withdraw the units from Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk to new defensive positions, but Zelensky has so far declared his unwillingness to do so. At the end of October, he dispatched top general Oleksandr Syrskyi and intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov to Pokrovsk to rectify the situation.

War in the skies

The continued exchange of heavy drone and missile strikes appears to satisfy both sides, despite Zelensky’s acknowledgment in September that stopping them was a priority. On October 27, following a meeting with the military command, the Ukrainian president expressed satisfaction with the results of Ukrainian air strikes, saying that “Russian oil refining is already paying a significant price for the war and will pay an even greater one,” and announced plans to expand their scope. These actions are consistent with Trump’s new sanctions, which are meant to maximally squeeze Russia’s fiscal revenues.

For example, on October 7 and 13, 11 storage tanks were completely destroyed and several damaged beyond repair in a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil refinery in occupied Feodosia, Crimea. On October 16-17, the Ukrainian army carried out another, complex strike, using both sea- and air-based drones, as well as Neptune missiles, against Crimea’s fuel and energy infrastructure, hitting several oil storage facilities and substations. Besides the fires caused at oil depots – primarily in Feodosia – several districts of the city lost power temporarily. 

The Ukrainians’ greatest success, however, was the downing of a Russian Su-30 fighter-bomber, which, while hunting Ukrainian naval drones, caught fire in mid-air – possibly due to friendly fire from Russian air defense. The crew survived, but the aircraft was destroyed. On November 2, Ukrainian drones caused serious damage to oil terminals, along with a tanker being refueled in Tuapse, Krasnodar Region, damaging, according to the Ukrainians, at least five fueling points.

Though Ukrainian drones have struck an estimated 25-30% of Russian oil refineries and gasoline shortages are being reported in an increasing number of Russian regions with high inflation overall, there are still no signs of serious structural problems in Russia’s oil refining sector, in oil exports or among large consumer groups such as residents of major cities or the military. Drones set fire to individual oil and fuel storage tanks almost nightly and, more rarely, hit components of refining equipment, which is now being better protected. Yet major economic problems from drone strikes have emerged only in two cases, unrelated to oil and gas.

Firstly, constant drone and missile attacks on the energy infrastructure of Belgorod Region and Crimea have led to serious power-supply problems in the border area, especially in Belgorod Region. The city of Belgorod, as described by the @dva_majors voenkory Telegram channel, is “going dark” and buying electric generators. It is entirely possible that another 2-3 months of systematic Ukrainian drone strikes on electrical substations will lead to blackouts in other border regions or even interior regions (primarily Bryansk but also Kursk), up to 200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, as well as in occupied territories such as Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and parts of Luhansk regions.

Secondly, there have been systematic Ukrainian attempts to strike factories producing components for Russian missiles and avionics, as well as explosives for them. These plants are typically scattered across provincial cities in European Russia and are not protected by air or missile defense. However, there is no evidence yet that these strikes – except in Belgorod and Bryansk regions, which are close to the border – have had a long-term effect like reliably disrupting production or shutting down the factories. An example is the attack on the Bryansk Chemical Plant on October 21 using Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which Ukraine says completely destroyed the facility.

This, however, has had no discernible impact on Russia’s missile output; at least, no evidence of such is available. According to AFP estimates, Russia fired 270 missiles at Ukraine in October – the highest monthly figure in two and a half years. Despite numerous attempts, the Ukrainian army failed to disrupt operations at Russia’s main oil and gas export pumping stations and ports in September and early October, and by mid-October, operations had virtually gone back to normal, excluding the incident in Tuapse.