Executive Summary

The war in Ukraine remains attritional but dynamic. Ukraine’s long-range drone strike—Operation Spiderweb—destroyed or damaged up to 17 Russian bombers, dealing a major blow to Russia’s strategic aviation and signalling Kyiv’s growing deep-strike capabilities. On the ground, Russian forces continue pushing across Sumy, Kharkiv, and Donbas, but gains are limited and costly. Ukrainian defences largely hold, though manpower and logistical pressure are mounting.

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid and critical infrastructure are intensifying, with growing risks to nuclear safety, particularly around Zaporizhzhia. The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate amid repeated strikes on civilian areas.

Diplomatically, progress is minimal. Talks in Istanbul resulted only in limited prisoner exchanges. Western allies have eased restrictions on Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, increasing Kyiv’s strategic options but also escalation risks.

NATO’s Eastern Flank remains on elevated alert. Member states—particularly Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania—are intensifying joint exercises, upgrading forward infrastructure, and preparing for potential Russian hybrid or conventional spillover. Investments in integrated air and missile defence, counter-UAV systems, and logistics hubs continue, reinforcing deterrence and allied cohesion along the alliance’s most exposed frontier.

Russia is reinforcing military ties with China and maintaining global outreach, while Belarus has downscaled Zapad-2025, likely due to Russian troop shortages.

Key Watchpoints:

• Further Ukrainian deep strikes could trigger Russian ballistic retaliation.
• Energy grid vulnerability in the north risks operational breakdown.
• NATO’s Eastern Flank posture is critical to deterring further escalation.
• Russia-China alignment remains a significant long-term threat.

Ukraine’s success now hinges on battlefield resilience, expanded drone production, and sustained Western support.

Regional overview

Eastern Europe remains in a state of heightened military and geopolitical tension, shaped by Ukraine’s evolving defence posture, Russia’s attritional campaign, and the continued transformation of NATO’s Eastern Flank. The operational tempo across Ukraine reflects a war of endurance, marked by strategic strikes, high daily engagement rates, and mounting civilian costs. Ukraine’s growing deep-strike capabilities—exemplified by Operation Spiderweb—have altered the strategic calculus, forcing Russia to consider homeland defence implications and exposing systemic vulnerabilities in its long-range aviation assets.

In Russia, the summer campaign continues across multiple axes—Sumy, Kharkiv, Donbas, and Zaporizhzhia—but gains remain marginal and tactically costly. While Russia introduces extended-range FPV drones and persists with a combined arms approach, it continues to face shortages in manpower, modern equipment, and operational coordination. Recruitment drives, societal militarisation, and expanded partnerships with China, North Korea, and Iran highlight both the regime’s commitment to sustaining the war and the structural limits of its force generation.

Belarus continues to consolidate its role as a strategic rear-area partner to Russia while broadening international defence ties. President Lukashenko’s visit to China and Defence Minister Khrenin’s meetings in Pakistan underscore Minsk’s pivot toward non-Western security partners. At home, Belarus sustained a high operational tempo through biannual readiness drills involving over 20 units, alongside CSTO exercise planning and information control training. While Zapad-2025 has been scaled down, planning continues under the CSTO framework.

NATO’s Eastern Flank continues to strengthen its deterrence posture. Poland, the Baltic States, and Romania are increasing their investment in counter-UAV capabilities, integrated air defences, and host-nation infrastructure. Joint exercises, such as Saber Guardian 25, reinforce operational readiness. Romania has explicitly ruled out conscription, focusing instead on a professional force structure and deterrence posture. Meanwhile, Poland’s military reform debate continues to revolve around procurement, hybrid threats, and command restructuring.

From a strategic risk perspective, the potential for escalation remains elevated. Ukraine’s expanded freedom to strike within Russian territory, without prior Western coordination, increases the risk of Russian retaliation against major Ukrainian cities or infrastructure nodes. Russia’s continued degradation of Ukraine’s energy grid, especially in border oblasts, could precipitate cascading failures in command, logistics, and civilian resilience. Meanwhile, the protracted occupation and forced Russification of eastern Ukraine signal Moscow’s intent to solidify its gains, complicating any future peace settlement.

Looking forward, the region faces a volatile equilibrium. Ukraine’s tactical innovations, Western support, and determination provide credible resistance to Russian advances, but material fatigue, demographic strain, and gaps in Western aid commitments—especially from the US—pose risks to long-term sustainability. NATO’s deterrent posture remains critical to containing conflict spillover, while Russia’s global manoeuvring with China and other authoritarian partners suggests the conflict is increasingly embedded in a broader strategic competition.

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