Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Zelensky might be next after Yermak was just taken down unless he complies with Trump’s demands for peace, in which case it’s not unforeseeable that he too could be formally implicated in this scandal as the catalyst for a US-backed regime change carried out in collusion with his domestic allies.

Zelensky’s warmongering grey cardinal Andrey Yermak, who formally serves as his Chief of Staff, submitted his resignation after his apartment was raided as part of the investigation into Ukraine’s $100 million energy graft scandal. Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik believes that he was fired, however, to protect Zelensky as the walls close in on him amidst this investigation. Whatever the truth may be, Miroshnik might be onto something, which will be elaborated on throughout this analysis.

It was earlier assessed that “Ukraine’s Corruption Scandal Might Pave The Way For Peace If It Takes Yermak Down” since “his downfall could undo the already shaky alliance between the armed forces, the oligarchs, the secret police, and parliament that keeps Zelensky in power.” Zelensky held off on getting rid of him for that reason, which emboldened Yermak to declare on his behalf that Ukraine won’t cede any territory to Russia, thus spoiling one of the main proposals in the US’ draft peace framework.

Shortly thereafter, Yermak’s apartment was raided with the participation of the two US-funded entities leading this graft investigation, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). Had Zelensky accepted the principles contained in the aforesaid framework, particularly the 26th one about how “all parties involved in this conflict will receive amnesty for their actions during the war”, Yermak might have been able to ride off into the sunset.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The British might be egging this on to provoke a crisis for ruining the renascent Russian-US “New Détente”, but even if this fails, Continental Europe would still be weakened if the US stands down when Russian retaliates and this could advance their interests too.

It was assessed in October that “NATO’s Three-Pronged Response To The Latest Russian Scare Raises The Risk Of A Larger War”. The bloc was by that point considering arming surveillance drones, streamlining the rules of engagement for fighter pilots, and holding NATO exercises right on the Russian border. All three are still in the cards, but recent reports from Politico and the Financial Times suggest that a hitherto unthinkable policy is now being discussed, which could be much more dangerous than them.

The first reported that “Allies from Denmark to the Czech Republic already allow offensive cyber operations” against Russia by their national security services, which set the backdrop against which Latvia’s Foreign Minister and interestingly Italy’s Defense Minister are agitating for more “proactiveness”. The second then quoted Chair of the NATO Military Committee Giuseppe Cavo Dragone as arguing that hypothetical “pre-emptive (cyber) strike[s]” could be considered a “defensive action” by the bloc.

Dragone clarified, however, that “It is further away from our normal way of thinking and behaviour.” Nevertheless, the importance of these recent reports is that they suggest that some NATO members might either unilaterally launch such “pre-emptive strikes” against Russia or do so in a new ‘coalition of the willing’, either of which would spike the risk of Russian retaliation that could catalyze a new potentially uncontrollable escalation cycle. It’s therefore best for them not to do this at all.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Indians are among the most Russian-friendly people in the world as proven by credible surveys, and unlike Central Asian Muslims, they harbor no historical grievances (whether objectively existing or subjectively perceived) that could be manipulated by foreign forces to weaponize them against Russia.

Putin will visit India late next week to meet with Modi for their annual summit, the first time that the Russian leader will travel to India since the special operation began, his last one being in December 2021. Aleksei Zakharov, a Fellow at India’s esteemed Observer Research Foundation, published a detailed article about how “Key Policy Outcomes Expected at the India-Russia Summit”. It’s an excellent read, but it omits mention of their large-scale labor migration talks, which might lead to a deal next week.

Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retired), the former Director-General of the Center for Air Power Studies in New Delhi, published an intriguing piece about this at RT in early November. He noted how both countries representatives “discussed potential collaboration on social and labor issues”, contextualizing their conversation by adding that Russia “plans to recruit up to 1 million foreign workers – including from India. The Russian Labor Ministry estimates the shortfall could expand to 3.1 million workers by 2030.”

He makes a lot of compelling arguments about how India could help resolve this dimension of “Russia’s demography problem”, but what’s left out is how its labor migrants pose less of a security risk than Russia’s traditional ones from Central Asia. Conor Gallagher touched upon this in early November in his extensively detailed analysis about the US’ evolving strategy towards that region. From this point here near the end for the next several paragraphs, he describes Russia’s new approach towards migration.

Not only is Russia “getting rid of 700,000-plus migrants, mostly Central Asians, a process which was jumpstarted by the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in outer Moscow in March 2024”, but “the Concept of State Migration Policy for 2026-2030…focuses not on increasing the population through Central Asian citizens, but on strengthening control, digitalization, and the task of attracting only those migrants who share the ‘traditional spiritual and moral values’ of Russian society.”

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The geostrategic context of newfound pressure upon each, their increased bilateral tensions, and rising fears that false flag provocations in Europe could manipulate them into war with one another make it likely that their planned Budapest Summit will be more successful than the Anchorage one.

[This was written on Oct 17, 2025 -Editor AWIP] The next Putin-Trump meeting will soon take place in Budapest. Prior to their last one in Anchorage, the vision that they were working towards was a resource-centric strategic partnership that could then become a steppingstone towards a more comprehensive one in the future.

For that to happen, either Putin had to freeze the frontlines or Trump had to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass, but neither could agree to what was requested of them so their New Détente went nowhere.

Even worse, the Europeans then became serious obstacles to peace, even going as far as teaming up with the Brits and Zelensky to propose dangerous “security guarantees” that riled Russia. Trump ramped up his rhetoric against Putin afterwards, arguably due to him being manipulated by Lindsey Graham and Zelensky, thus culminating in the latest talk about sending Tomahawks to Ukraine. It was within this tense context that they talked again, right before Zelensky’s trip to DC, and agreed to meet in Budapest.

Each side is also coming under a lot of newfound pressure nowadays that conceivably influenced their latest call and plans to meet. From Russia’s side, the new TRIPP corridor will inject Western influence along Russia’s southern flank via NATO member Turkiye (despite Russia’s thaw with Azerbaijan), Poland is reviving its long-lost Great Power status along Russia’s western flank, and Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) revealed last month that French and UK troops are already in Ukraine’s Odessa Region.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned earlier the same day as Bloomberg’s report that the Brits are hellbent on discrediting Trump in order to undermine his latest peace efforts for resolving the conflict from which they profit.

Bloomberg shared what it claimed to be the transcripts of calls between Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov as well as between Ushakov and Putin’s other advisor Kirill Dmitriev about the Ukrainian peace process. The gist of the Witkoff-Ushakov call was Witkoff’s proposal to have Putin suggest a Gaza-like 20-point peace deal for Ukraine during an upcoming call with Trump while the Ushakov-Dmitriev one implied that the leaked draft was Russian-influenced.

Ushakov declined to comment on his talks with Witkoff but said that “Somebody tapped, somebody leaked, but not us” whereas Dmitriev flat-out described his purported call with Ushakov as “fake”. For his part, Trump defended Witkoff’s alleged “coaching” of Ushakov on how Putin should deal with him by reminding everyone “That’s what a dealmaker does. You got to say, ‘Look, they want this – you got to convince them with this.’ That’s a very standard form of negotiations.”

As regards the possibility that the draft framework was Russian-influenced, the notion of which has been pushed by the legacy media to discredit the proposed mutual compromises therein, that was already debunked. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as National Security Advisor, said that...

Therefore, neither transcript is scandalous even if their contents were accurately reported, yet the question arises of who might have tapped and leaked these calls.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

He’s Zelensky’s powerbroker so his downfall could undo the already shaky alliance between the armed forces, the oligarchs, the secret police, and parliament that keeps Zelensky in power, thus pressuring him into peace, especially if his warmongering grey cardinal is no longer pushing him to keep fighting.

It was earlier assessed here that Ukraine’s $100 million energy graft scandal might only result in a cabinet reshuffle at most, the sentiment of which RT chief Margarita Simonyan shared when writing on X “But we all know it won’t” in response to The Spectator predicting that it might bring Zelensky down. The events of the past week warrant a re-evaluation after members of the ruling party demanded the resignation of his powerful Chief of Staff Andrey Yermak on the grounds that he knew about this racket.

This coincided with Axios’ report that the US and Russia have been secretly working on a framework agreement for ending the Ukrainian Conflict, which Politico then reported could be agreed to “by the end of this month — and possibly ‘as soon as this week.’” The latter’s source also allegedly told them that “We don’t really care about the Europeans. It’s about Ukraine accepting”, which they said it might very well do since the plan will essentially “be presented to Zelensky as a fait accompli.” Politico’s reporter elaborated that...

Accordingly, it can be reassessed that this corruption scandal championed by the US-backed “National Anti-Corruption Bureau” might facilitate an end an end to the conflict, especially if Yermak goes down as a result. Everything will be clearer by the end of the month.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Corrupting a MiG-31 pilot armed with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles into defecting, only to then shoot him down near what’ll be NATO’s largest airbase in Europe, risked sparking World War III.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Ukraine and the UK of plotting a spectacular false flag provocation that could have led to led to war with NATO. According to them, they sought to corrupt a MiG-31 fighter jet pilot armed with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles into defecting, but then he’d be shot down near Romania’s seaside city of Constanta. Importantly, NATO’s largest airbase in Europe is being built nearby, so the incident could have resulted in an unprecedented exchange of hostilities.

This revelation follows Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warning that false flag provocations were being cooked up in the Baltic and Poland, the purpose of which would be to prompt an escalation of tensions with NATO that the orchestrators expect will end with Russian strategic concessions. In connection with this, they believe that Trump would feel compelled to intervene, whether saber-rattling to the aforementioned end or possibly even authorizing direct US involvement in a “retaliatory strike”.

Of course, it goes without saying that everything could easily spiral out of control into World War III since Russia’s voluntary submission to the West under such coercion can’t be taken for granted, ergo the importance of the FSB thwarting what could have been a false flag provocation for the ages.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russia’s Burevestnik Missile Test Was Actually A De-Escalation Measure. Its real purpose is to get the US to reconsider its impending escalations against Russia by reminding it of the strategic costs that this could entail.

Trump slammed Russia’s test of its unlimited-range nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile by describing it as inappropriate and urging Putin to end the Ukrainian Conflict instead. The aforesaid test follows Putin’s warning that Trump’s potential transfer of longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would provoke a “downright staggering” response from Russia. That in turn came right after a supposedly planned test of Russia’s nuclear triad coinciding with Trump canceling their Budapest Summit.

The sequence of events that Russia initiated amidst the breakdown of talks with the US, for which Zelensky claimed credit while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that joint EU-Ukrainian pressure was responsible, is understandable if analyzed in context. To begin with, there hasn’t yet been any tangible progress on extending the New START upon its expiry in February, which risks further worsening Russian-US tensions since it’s the last remaining strategic arms control pact between them.

In connection with that, Trump remains committed to developing what he calls the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, which his advisors arguably believe would give the US a strategic edge over Russia by enabling it to intercept more second strikes in the scenario of a nuclear war. This imperative explains why Bush Jr. pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001 shortly after 9/11 and all subsequent presidents retained his policy course of developing this infrastructure at home and abroad.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Putin is once again extending an olive branch to Zelensky and Trump in his latest goodwill gesture because he truly doesn’t want the conflict to drag on nor to expand Russia’s territorial claims as would likely then happen.

Putin announced that more than ten thousand Ukrainian troops were encircled in Kupyansk and Krasnoarmeisk (Pokrovsk), with his Ministry of Defense soon adding Dimitrov (Mirnograd) near the latter to the list. The Russian leader also proposed halting the fighting so that foreign journalists, including Ukrainian ones, can travel to the front to report on this. Putin suggested a mass surrender just like early 2022’s Azovstal standoff, but Zelensky seems uninterested, at least for now. Here’s what it all means:

1. Russia Continues To Gain Ground Despite Billions In Western Aid For Ukraine | The Economist recently published a piece lobbying for Europe to fund Ukraine over the next four years, which they claim will cost taxpayers at least $390 billion. Their article also reported that $100-110 billion was spent this year, “the highest sum yet”, for a total of $360 billion since 2022 (likely an underestimate). Quite clearly, Western aid hasn’t succeeded in pushing Russia back, only in decelerating its gains. Ukraine’s encirclement therefore shows that no amount of money will inflict a strategic defeat for Russia.

2. The Gravy Train Might End If Ukraine Acknowledges This Encirclement | Building upon the above, Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky have denied these encirclements, most likely because they fear that the aforesaid gravy train might end or at least slow down if they order their forces to surrender. After all, the loss of thousands of troops in three encirclements over 3.5 years into the conflict is no small matter, which might make some Western officials reconsider funding Ukraine since the victory that they were promised is no longer in sight.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Each part of what’s arguably Trump’s new three-phase strategy against Russia has its drawbacks.

Trump’s latest escalation against Russia took the form of imposing severe sanctions against its top two energy companies, canceling his planned meeting with Putin, and now declaring that they won’t meet again unless it’s to finalize a deal over Ukraine.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote about the implications of his flip-flop here, insinuating that they presage an intensified US proxy war of attrition on Russia. The present piece will briefly explore what form this could take and its likelihood of success. The WSJ posits that...

“...The drone revolution…means that neither side is likely to make major territorial strides soon”, but left unsaid is that this is also due to continued NATO support for Ukraine, including the bloc’s purchase of US weapons at full price for transfer to there per the new scheme from last summer. Maintaining this de facto balance of drone and conventional forces, which is due to NATO’s indispensable support for Ukraine, is therefore the US’ top priority if wants to atrophy Russia’s strength with time.