Weekly Significant Activity Report - September 27, 2025
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The Russian military needs to make a breakthrough in Ukraine’s defensive lines in Donetsk in order to gain a definitive upper hand on the battlefield and in negotiations to end the war on the minimum terms acceptable to Moscow. To do that the Kremlin is putting all its chips on the table to irreversibly alter the battlefield situation.
Sustained Western support for Ukraine at this critical juncture could prove decisive in preventing Russian military success. Even indirect signals of Trump administration backing for Ukraine and Europe complicate Moscow’s calculus and raise the stakes for achieving a war-altering breakthrough. The window to make such a breakthrough appears to be narrowing as a growing number of indicators suggest that Russia’s defense industrial capacity has passed its peak.
