By Yunis GURBANOV, PhD, Senior Advisor at the AIR Center, Baku

The Alaska summit highlighted the discordant divergence between Washington and Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and exposed the limits of summit diplomacy in the context of a grinding war. President Trump reaffirmed America's formal commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and NATO's deterrent stance, but his words were typically qualified by continual calls for a "realistic settlement" with Moscow. This contrasted sharply with the State Department’s prior line, suggesting internal tensions within Washington’s approach. President Putin, for his part, sought to capitalize on these uncertainties: he promoted Russia's military successes as irreversible facts on the ground, demanded Western recognition of occupied land, and framed Moscow's actions as a defensive reaction against NATO "encirclement. READ MORE

• September 8, 2025

By Fuad Shahbazov, Baku-based independent regional security and defence analyst

Uneasy neighbours at the best of times, open hostility from the Kremlin is pushing Azerbaijan closer to Ukraine.
Russian drones attacked an oil depot in Odesa in Ukraine on August 17. That’s not unusual, but that night’s target was notable in one important sense — the Kremlin struck high-profile infrastructure owned by SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company. This was no accident. Russia had attacked the same SOCAR facility in Ukraine on August 8. Taken together with a series of other events, it has become clear that Putin’s men are sending a message. That comes at some risk to themselves and potential benefits for Ukraine. These weren’t the first or even the most serious Russian acts of hostility against the energy-rich South Caucasian nation. On Christmas Day, Russian missile batteries shot down a scheduled Azerbaijan Airways plane, killing 38 people. The incident caused uproar, not least because while the missile firing may have resulted from mistaken identity, Russian air controllers refused the badly damaged aircraft permission to land. READ MORE

• September 8, 2025

Here are the key events on day 1,273 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

• August 20, 2025

The White House has reiterated President Donald Trump’s remarks that US troops will not be deployed to Ukraine as part of any security guarantees under a peace deal with Russia. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US may instead provide coordination and air support.

• August 20, 2025

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says discussing Ukraine security issues without Russia is a ‘road to nowhere’.

• August 20, 2025

Iran’s FM sceptical about resuming talks with the US, says Iran cannot break ties with UN nuclear watchdog.

• August 20, 2025

The White House has reiterated President Donald Trump’s remarks that US troops will not be deployed to Ukraine as part of any security guarantees under a peace deal with Russia. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US may instead provide coordination and air support.

• August 20, 2025

The UK is ready to ‘increase pressure’ on Russia over its continuing war on Ukraine, says Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

• August 14, 2025