VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, has told clients it plans to let them buy and sell real cryptocurrencies through its brokerage service, with a target rollout in 2026 pending regulator approval.

According to the bank, the move would go beyond the derivative products that most Russian banks have offered so far. It is a clear shift toward opening traditional finance to digital assets, at least for now among wealthy clients.

Client Eligibility And Timetable

Reports have disclosed that VTB intends to begin with high-net-worth customers only. The bank set thresholds for its initial offering: clients with assets above $1.3 million or annual income over $649,000 would be eligible at first.

Andrey Yatskov, who heads VTB’s brokerage arm, said there is “sharp demand” from clients for access to actual crypto, not just paper products tied to token prices. The bank has picked 2026 as the planned start year, but it made that clear the launch depends on regulators signing off.

Real Crypto, Not Just Contracts

Based on reports, the service would allow ownership of the underlying coins — not merely derivative contracts or token-linked notes. That is a significant distinction in Russia, where until recently banks were limited to offering exposure through derivative instruments.

Allowing customers to hold coins directly would require legal and compliance work, from custody arrangements to anti-money-laundering controls. Those steps are on the critical path before any retail expansion can happen.

VTB has also given investors a sense of how it views crypto as an asset class. The bank recommended a 7% allocation to crypto for some investor profiles, and its internal forecasts have mentioned medium-term Bitcoin price targets in the $200,000–$250,000 range under favorable conditions.

If VTB moves forward, it could be the first major Russian bank to operate in this way — a signal that some parts of the financial sector see token ownership as something to be offered through mainstream channels.

The plan is not risk free. Russian regulation of crypto is still evolving, and any permit to offer direct trading will require approval from the relevant authorities. Sanctions and other geopolitical pressures could alter timelines or force changes to how the service is structured. Compliance teams will need to reconcile domestic rules with international restrictions that affect many big banks operating in or dealing with Russia.

For now, the rollout remains conditional. VTB’s timeline, client criteria, and product design all hinge on legal clarifications and regulator consent. Market participants and clients will likely follow announcements from the Bank of Russia and other agencies to judge how soon broader access might come.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin Magazine

VTB Pushes to Open Russia’s First Bank-Run Bitcoin Trading Desk as Kremlin Moves to Classify Mining as an Export

Russia’s second-largest lender, VTB, is positioning itself to become the first major bank in the country to let customers trade bitcoin and crypto directly. 

Andrey Yatskov, head of VTB’s brokerage arm, told Russian outlet RBC that client demand for “real” crypto — not just derivative products — is rising sharply. “As we see it, real cryptocurrency will be available for purchase via our brokerage accounts,” he said, according to DLNews reporting.

The move comes despite the fact that crypto trading remains unregulated in Russia. For now, banks can only offer crypto-linked derivatives, a permission granted earlier this year to VTB, rival Sberbank, and the Moscow Exchange. 

But momentum in Moscow has turned. After years of pushing for a full ban, the central bank has recently signaled it is ready to regulate crypto instead, reflecting mounting pressure from lawmakers, ministries, and businesses eager for a legal framework — and tax revenue.

VTB plans to test its trading platform with “super-qualified clients,” those holding over $1.3 million in assets or earning more than $649,000 a year. 

The bank expects broader permission as regulators ease restrictions, a shift the central bank’s first deputy governor called a “strategic response to sanctions regimes.”

Commercial banks now see themselves playing a central role in a future market of licensed crypto brokers and depositories. 

Yatskov said clear rules would “definitely boost” transparency and confirmed VTB intends to participate once regulations are finalized.

Crypto is already finding new footholds in Russia, from cross-border payments to a rapidly expanding industrial mining sector. 

With the tide turning, VTB aims to launch full crypto trading services as early as 2026. Earlier this year, the Bank of Russia reportedly started allowing domestic banks to conduct limited crypto operations under tight regulatory oversight.

“We hold conservative views and think about how appropriate it is for the banking sector to include cryptocurrency in its assets,” First Deputy Chairman Vladimir Chistyukhin said at the time.

Kremlin adviser pushes to classify crypto mining as an export in Russia’s trade accounts

In the meantime, a senior Kremlin official is saying that Russia should treat crypto mining as a formal export sector, arguing that large volumes of mined Bitcoin effectively leave the country’s economy even without crossing a physical border.

Speaking at the ‘Russia Calling!’ investment forum, Maxim Oreshkin — Deputy Chief of Staff to President Vladimir Putin — said crypto flows are “enormous” yet absent from official statistics, despite influencing the foreign-exchange market and Russia’s balance of payments.

Russia legalized industrial crypto mining in 2024, and Oreshkin described the sector as a “new and undervalued export item” that the state fails to properly measure. 

Because Russian firms increasingly settle import bills with cryptocurrency, he said, those transactions should be counted in the nation’s trade and currency calculations.

Industry executives say the scale justifies the shift. Via Numeri Group CEO Oleg Ogienko estimates Russian miners will produce “tens of thousands” of BTC this year. Sergey Bezdelov, head of the Industrial Mining Association, put output at roughly 55,000 BTC in 2023 and around 35,000 BTC in 2024 following Bitcoin’s halving.

Regulators have tightened oversight as the sector expands. Companies and sole proprietors must register with the Federal Tax Service, hosting providers are tracked in a dedicated registry, and miners face corporate tax rates as high as 25%. 

Household miners remain exempt from registration only if their power consumption stays under 6,000 kWh per month.

The push to formalize the industry comes as authorities crack down on illegal operations that siphon electricity and evade taxes — losses officials say run into the millions. But with Russia now the world’s No. 2 Bitcoin-mining nation, pressure is mounting for Moscow to integrate the fast-growing sector into its national accounts.

This post VTB Pushes to Open Russia’s First Bank-Run Bitcoin Trading Desk as Kremlin Moves to Classify Mining as an Export first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

The state-sponsored hackers relied on phishing emails to deliver a malicious payload to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The post Reporters Without Borders Targeted by Russian Hackers appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Crypto mining should be treated as a form of export in Russia’s official trade accounts, according to senior Kremlin official Maxim Oreshkin, who argued that large volumes of mined digital assets effectively flow abroad even if they never cross a physical border.

Speaking at the Russia Calling! investment forum, Oreshkin said the industry generates “enormous sums” that remain outside formal statistics despite influencing the foreign-exchange market and the balance of payments.

Russia Moves to Classify Crypto Mining as a New Export

Russia legalized cryptocurrency mining on November 1, 2024, and Oreshkin described the sector as a “new export item” that the country “doesn’t value very well.”

Because crypto can be used to pay for imports through alternative channels, he said, those transactions should be counted when the state measures trade flows and currency dynamics.

Industry figures say the scale is already material. Oleg Ogienko, chief executive of Via Numeri Group, estimates that Russia’s output of proof-of-work assets this year could equal “tens of thousands” of Bitcoins.

Sergey Bezdelov, head of the Industrial Mining Association, put production at about 55,000 BTC in 2023 and roughly 35,000 BTC in 2024, citing the network’s halving as a drag on miner rewards.

The revenue impact is also significant. Mikhail Brezhnev, co-founder of mining supplier 51ASIC, estimates daily mining income across the country at around 1 billion rubles, a figure he links to Russia’s share of global computing power and Bitcoin’s price.

Because mined coins can be used directly to settle import bills, Brezhnev says the case for recording those flows in official statistics is straightforward.

Regulators, meanwhile, are tightening oversight. Legal entities and sole proprietors must register with the Federal Tax Service to mine, and hosting providers are listed in a separate registry.

Household miners are exempt from registration only if they consume less than 6,000 kWh a month, though all income must be reported.

Corporate mining is taxed at 25%, while individuals face progressive rates of 13–22%; non-residents pay 30%.

Illegal Crypto Mining Drains Russia’s Power Grid and Tax Base

As reported, a recent Russian media investigation revealed that illegal and semi-legal crypto mining is costing the country millions of dollars each year through stolen electricity and unpaid taxes.

Broadcaster Ren TV reports that many miners avoid registering their operations to escape high power tariffs and tax obligations, pushing large parts of the industry into the shadows and creating billion-ruble losses for the state budget.

Although Russia now permits industrial crypto mining and offers legal status to registered operators, smaller miners are reportedly refusing to comply.

While major firms such as BitRiver and Intelion work within the system, many independent operators are accused of resorting to meter manipulation, bribery, and secret agreements with utility workers.

As a result, households and legitimate businesses are said to be absorbing the cost of stolen electricity.

The post Senior Kremlin Official Proposes Counting Crypto Mining as Russia’s “Hidden Export” appeared first on Cryptonews.

When the swap finally happened, Putin greeted Krasikov on the tarmac with a public embrace, an extraordinary display of presidential affection for a convicted murderer. Days later, the Kremlin confirmed his FSB status, praised his “service,” and even highlighted his past role as a presidential bodyguard. Putin’s message to his security services—and to the world—could not have been clearer: if you kill for Putin’s regime, the regime will protect you. Killing for the regime has always been a mission for Russia’s intelligence services (RIS).

State-directed murder was long embedded in the mission and culture of the RIS and their predecessors. The practice predates the Soviet Union, reaching back to the Czarist Okhrana, which routinely hunted down dissidents when exile to Siberia failed to silence them. After the 1905 revolution, Czar Nicholas II unleashed a wave of retributive assassinations that set a precedent for the violence institutionalized by the Cheka and later the KGB. He became known as “Bloody Nicholas.” The state security “organs” (as they are still known in Russia) elevated assassination into a professional craft, giving rise to the notorious phrase in Russian: vishaya mera nakazaniya — the highest measure of punishment. The term still carries its original meaning and dreaded connotation: death at the order of the state, whether by trial or extrajudicial killing.

There were many examples both at home and abroad for Soviet citizens to be afraid. Stalin’s plot to kill his arch-rival and fellow revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, was decades in the making and ended with an ice pick to Trotsky’s head while he was in Mexico City. His assassin, Ramon Mercader, was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union when he was released from prison and arrived back in the USSR.

Secret institutes like the infamous “Poison Factory,” known in the KGB as Laboratory 1 or “kamera” (for “the cell”), were set up during the early years of the Cold War to study chemical and biological agents that could be used to murder quietly. Laboratory 1 specialized in refining special toxins, like the ricin pellet the KGB provided to their Bulgarian allies, and used in the infamous assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov on a London bridge in 1978.

Today is no different. Some assassinations are believed to be directly ordered by Putin in what the Russians call “direct action” (pryamoye deistviye, also known colloquially as mokroe delo, or wet work), while others are believed to be carried out with his implied approval. Poison factories continue to function inside of Russia. Today, the FSB uses a modern “kamera” which helped refine the nerve agent Novichok for use against the defector Sergei Skripal in the 2018 Salisbury UK attack. It was the same agent used against Russian Opposition leaders Alexei Navalny in a failed assassination attempt, prior to his death in a remote Russian prison, also likely wet work at the hands of the FSB.

Why does Putin let his Chekist assassins use such a well-known, state-only produced chemical weapon like Novichok to kill defectors or dissidents? The answer: because he wants the world to know the RIS were behind the attacks and that the tradition of the “highest measure” continues. Otherwise, he could certainly have his hitmen use a gun, ice pick, or other more deniable method. There is a track record now for decades, going back to the FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko and his death from polonium in the UK. The RIS will not hesitate to murder any intelligence or military defectors that the RIS can find and reach in the West. The lack of a formidable response from the UK and the U.S. to the Litvinenko poisoning only emboldened Putin and his henchmen (one of the assassins, Lugavoy, was praised so highly within Russia that he was eventually elected to the Russian duma).

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The Russian Record of Killing their Own: Disincentivizing Dissent

Putin and his RIS siloviki want all of their officers to know that the price for treason is death, and they don’t care what government may be offended or what international laws are broken. Otherwise, the incentive for those officers to betray Russia’s corrupt services and look to a better life for themselves and their families is too high. It matters not whether the execution is ordered by a secret court, or carried out on the street, the RIS consider it within their purview to decide how and when.

Two historical points illustrate this as practice within the RIS. For decades of the Cold War, and after, the rumor proliferated within the KGB and GRU that one or both of the first GRU spies to work for the United States, Pyotr Popov and Oleg Penkovskiy, were executed by being thrown into a furnace alive. Popov was uncovered and executed in 1960. Penkovskiy was arrested and executed in May 1963 after the vital role he played in providing intelligence to the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The practice during that time period, carried over from Stalin’s purges, was more likely a bullet to the back of the head up against a wall at the infamous Lubyanka prison. But the rumor, which was spread to the West by GRU defector Viktor Suvorov, was effective and garnered a lot of attention within the services; it still does. It was purposely spread, and taught, and continues to be, at the KGB Andropov Academy through the 1980s, now known as the modern SVR Foreign Service Academy (what they call the AVR). The same rumor is taught to officers at the GRU Military Diplomatic Academy. Defectors have confirmed for years that this rumor is whispered among classes at the academies, and as a warning against dissents—“you want to be thrown into a furnace alive, shut-up you idiot!” The very idea of being burned alive in a furnace is hard for young officers to forget.

There is another example from Cold War history that illustrates the same point. In 1985, the so-called “year of the spy,” while crypto-spy John Walker and his family ring were uncovered and arrested, CIA officer Ed Howard defected to Moscow, and many other espionage incidents took place. CIA traitor Rick Ames gave his “big dump” of classified holdings to the Soviets. Ames offered up roughly a dozen different U.S. cases to the Soviet services, including many penetrations of the KGB and GRU. Most of those assets were executed in short order, sending up a giant “CI flag” of counterintelligence warning to CIA/FBI and the entire U.S. intelligence community that something was amiss. A major mole hunt, which unfortunately took nine years, eventually led to Ames’ arrest. Ames himself commented after his arrest that he was astounded that the KGB/GRU had killed so many assets: why not keep them running as controlled cases, at least for a time, in order to protect him? It was an unprecedented, even reckless reaction.

Why did they do it?

The answer, as some senior Russian officers including former Line KR (kontrarazvedka or CI) Chief Viktor Cherkashin would later confirm (he wrote a book that was translated in the West) was that the Soviet services had no choice. The KGB and GRU had to take drastic steps to stop the flood of espionage and leaks in the Soviet services—too many traitors! An example had to be set.

Cherkashin would know since he ran both Ames and FBI spy Robert Hanssen when he served in the Washington D.C. Residency (station) of the KGB. Reportedly, the issue went to the highest ranks of the KGB/GRU and then on to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. For all their feared security prowess in the Soviet Union, the vaunted KGB had no idea that the CIA was running so many cases under their noses, literally, in Moscow and around the world. Since their own counterintelligence, the 2nd Chief Directorate of the KGB, had failed so miserably, the decision was made to execute them all (or nearly all, a previous few escaped death in the Gulag). There had to be a hard line drawn for the tens of thousands of other Soviet intelligence officers not to betray the regime - the highest measure would be the warning.

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Murder by Order or Murder to Impress the Boss?

The FSB is no less of a counterintelligence failure than their KGB predecessors. They cannot turn the tide against the U.S., our intelligence services, and those of our allies. Instead they arrest innocent civilians like those used to barter for the 2024 swap. That is why Putin likely continues to order death to all intelligence defectors. That is why he will greet a killer like Krasikov at the airport in Moscow in front of the cameras. But Putin’s RIS don’t just kill defectors and Chechen separatists. The RIS were almost certainly behind many political hits in Russia like Navalny, Boris Nemtsov and many others “falling out of windows” from Putin’s own government in recent years. Here it is important to recall that under President Yeltsin, Russia abolished the death penalty. So what were once judicial executions, ordered by the state, have become extra-judicial killings in the Putin era. But for the RIS, there is no distinction.

There have been many assaults and killings of journalists like Anna Politkovskaya. The question often arises—does Putin know about and order all of these murders? Perhaps, but there may be something else at play as well, an effort to impress “the boss.” This could also explain some of the more reckless acts of sabotage playing out in Europe at the hands of the RIS. Mafia families work in the same way - they surprise the boss with new income streams or take out a threat to the family with a hit, to earn one’s “button” and become a “made man.”

Indeed, the RIS function within mob-like cultures, fostered by patronage relationships, and corruption at every level. Officers are encouraged to pay bribes up the chain of command, and frauds of all kinds at every level infect their services. Putin has no doubt told aspiring leaders in the SVR, GRU and especially the FSB, his favorite service, to surprise him with new and inventive operations meant to hit back against the West, particularly regarding Ukraine. This has led to a cascading series of actions by the RIS, including sabotage, exploding parcels, and, yet again, like earlier in their history, attempted assassinations. The most brazen plot uncovered so far was the GRU plot that was unraveled in Germany in 2024 to assassinate the CEO of Rheinmetall, a leading provider of arms to Ukraine. GRU unit 29155 is likely behind that plot, just as they were behind the Skripal attack, and others.

The RIS attack dogs in Putin’s services are simply continuing a tradition of state-directed violence. Yet in the West, we often hesitate to assign blame, waiting for courtroom-quality evidence. But the evidence is already written across decades of Russian intelligence tradecraft, and reinforced by independent investigations.

Open-source teams like Bellingcat have repeatedly identified the GRU and FSB officers behind some of Moscow’s most feral operations - from the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury to the attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny. Still, conclusive proof of Kremlin authorization often appears only when an insider defects with hard intelligence. Those who contemplate such a step know they will be protected and given a new life in the West. They also know the stakes, however, if caught.

The absence of courtroom proof in every case of murder, poisoning, or a fall from a window should not silence the West. Putin’s record speaks for itself. His regime has presided over the killings of journalists, opposition figures, exiles abroad, and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. He operates as a modern bloody czar, no different in impulse from Nicholas II—ordering assassinations, reprisals, and revenge killings with impunity. And the pattern is escalating. It is only a matter of time before Russian intelligence pushes further, testing its reach against U.S. and allied targets. The warning signs are unmistakable. The question is no longer whether the threat exists, but what the West intends to do about it.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.

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A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fired from an underground silo on the country’s southern steppe Friday on a scheduled test to deliver a dummy warhead to a remote impact zone nearly 4,000 miles away. The missile didn’t even make it 4,000 feet.

Russia’s military has been silent on the accident, but the missile’s crash was seen and heard for miles around the Dombarovsky air base in Orenburg Oblast near the Russian-Kazakh border.

A video posted by the Russian blog site MilitaryRussia.ru on Telegram and widely shared on other social media platforms showed the missile veering off course immediately after launch before cartwheeling upside down, losing power, and then crashing a short distance from the launch site. The missile ejected a component before it hit the ground, perhaps as part of a payload salvage sequence, according to Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva.

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EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — In January of 2018, I was involved in organizing and supporting the visit of General Aleksandr Bortnikov, and Sergey Naryshkin, the heads of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), respectively, to Washington D.C. to discuss counterterrorism cooperation.

Interestingly, Bortnikov and Naryshkin did not travel at the same time, indicating to me that there was no love lost between the two. The SVR delegation arrived first, spent one day meeting with the leadership teams of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), then departed the next day before Bortnikov and his delegation arrived. Contrary to the wild claims made by some U.S. politicians and journalists after the visit, the head of the Russian Main Directorate of Intelligence (GRU) of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) did not travel to the U.S. in January of 2018, and the SVR and FSB delegations did not have any other official or unofficial meetings with U.S. officials. Also, the visits were fully coordinated within the U.S. Government’s Interagency.

Because these visits were part of the U.S. Administration’s “Intelligence Diplomacy” efforts, the U.S. and Russian sides both agreed that there would be no public or official statements about the meetings, nor would there be any organized media coverage of the visits.

After meetings with the DNI and CIA, Naryshkin had dinner plans with the then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov. And on the day of his departure from the U.S., Naryshkin advised a representative of the U.S. side supporting the visit that he and Antonov chose to have dinner at a quiet restaurant in Georgetown and that while dining together, a Russian journalist “happened” to be in the same restaurant at the same time, saw Naryshkin, and would “probably write a story” about his visit.

In delivering this news, Naryshkin claimed that he had no control over what the journalist would say or write and, sure enough, soon after his plane departed, there were media reports circulating in the U.S. about Naryshkin’s visit. The initial story came from a source in the Russian media, and was picked up by multiple U.S. and International media outlets. But the reporting included false claims, like “Naryshkin and Bortnikov were joined in the U.S. by the head of the GRU General Igor Korobov." Some reporting implied that the visits were not coordinated within the U.S. Government and suggested that it was possible that the Russians had also met with officials from the White House and the National Security Council (NSC) — all insinuations that were meant to undermine the U.S. President at the time.

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Of course, the SVR was aware of the deep political sensitivities in the U.S. related to all-things Russia at the time and they knew that Trump himself was still dealing with the fallout of the “Russia Collusion” narrative that had been created and promoted by political opponents during the 2016 Presidential election. Naryshkin used the opportunity presented by his visit to “leak” information about the visit itself and to exploit existing domestic problems in the U.S., knowing that would further inflame suspicions about the U.S. President and undermine both the President and confidence in the U.S. system. There is no doubt that Naryshkin’s boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of this information operation in advance and authorized it.

I refer to this action by the Kremlin as an “information operation” because to my knowledge, the SVR did not disseminate any false or distorted information directly when Naryshkin leaked news of his visit. However, it is very possible that this was part of what the Russians called an “operational combination” in which additional aspects of SVR operations could have involved seeding false information using clandestine sources in the U.S. media space - to amplify the narrative.

For example, it is possible that the Russians would used their sources to pass information to U.S. or Western journalists that led to a lot of the false claims about the GRU Director’s presence in the U.S. at the time and allegations of a "secret meeting" between the U.S. President and Russian Intelligence officials. Of course, it is also possible that the Russians did not have to seed this type of information and instead, simply benefited from the fact that Trump’s opponents were looking to seize on any tidbit of information to attack the President and were not beyond distorting facts or promoting falsehoods to advance their own political agendas.

Information Operations are designed to play on the emotions, fears, prejudices and pre-existing beliefs of their target audiences. They are much more successful when target audiences do not apply critical thinking skills and approach receiving information with a level of objective discipline.

Disinformation is used by U.S. adversaries to fuel divides between Americans. Find out how to spot it in this public service message from The Cipher Brief

In the case cited above, the Russians most likely assessed that “leaking” news of the visit of their Intelligence officials to the U.S. would play to the fears and political biases of certain portions of the U.S. audience and result in an emotional or politically charged response.

Unfortunately, the Russians likely got a great deal of benefit from a small investment of effort because elements of their target audience overreacted, giving the operation greater impact than it would have had if some targets of the effort had simply responded objectively, asked good questions about the news and purpose of the visit and taken the time to understand that the visit had been pre-cleared and coordinated within the U.S. Government “Interagency” system and was not unlike other visits by Russian Intelligence and Security officials to the U.S. during previous presidencies.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author's views.

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A Soyuz rocket launched on Thursday carrying Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, as well as NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, for an eight-month mission to the International Space Station. The trio of astronauts arrived at the orbiting laboratory without incident.

However, on the ground, there was a serious problem during the launch with the ground systems that support processing of the vehicle before liftoff at Site 31, located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

In a terse statement issued Thursday night on the social media site Telegram, the Russian space corporation that operates Soyuz appeared to downplay the incident: “The launch pad was inspected, as is done every time a rocket is launched. Damage to several launch pad components was identified. Damage can occur after launch, so such inspections are mandatory worldwide. The launch pad’s condition is currently being assessed.”

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OPINION — President Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan is a humanitarian attempt to halt the killing and destruction in Ukraine, although Russia’s President Vladimir Putin may view the peace plan as an attempt to appease Russia. Since Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008, the U.S. and its NATO allies have not been able to deter an aggressive Russian Federation.

When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, this was a clear signal, especially to NATO, that Russia was prepared to use force in the “near abroad” when their interests weren’t respected. The response from the U.S. and NATO was weak: no military support to Georgia or strong punitive actions against Russia

In 2014, Russia seized Crimea, with minimal consequences. The muted response in 2008 to Russia’s invasion of Georgia no doubt convinced the Kremlin that the U.S. and NATO would not risk a military confrontation with Russia. Although Russia was suspended from the G8 and the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea, NATO’s military response – suspending all cooperation with Russia -- was weak:

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021reinforced the Russian view that U.S. and NATO “red lines” were either not clear or not credible. Indeed, Russia viewed the withdrawal as a weakening of U.S. deterrence credibility.

On February 4, 2022, just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Mr. Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Beijing Winter Olympics. The joint statement from their discussion was clear in stating a “no-limits” partnership and “no forbidden areas of cooperation” between Russia and China.

And prior to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. publicly stated that they had credible intelligence of Russia’s plan to invade Ukraine. Unfortunately, however, even with this insight, the U.S. could not convince Mr. Putin an invasion of Ukraine would cross a red line and result in sanctions and other consequences for Russia. We failed to deter Russia from this bloody four-year war, with over 400,000 Ukrainian casualties and over one million Russian casualties.

The 28-point peace plan is being reviewed by the leadership in Ukraine and NATO and it’s possible the peace plan will be amended, to secure greater support from Ukraine and NATO.

What’s clear from Russia’s actions in Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine is that U.S. and NATO deterrence failed. A credible deterrence strategy would have made it clear to Russia that their aggressive military behavior would have resulted in significant consequences, to include biting sanctions, pariah status and a likely military response.

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China, North Korea and Iran, allies of Russia, are watching closely how the war in Ukraine ends. Indeed, their interest in what’s included in the peace plan and the consequences for Russia, given their invasion of a Ukraine that had security assurances from Russia – and the U.S. and United Kingdom – in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, which pledged to respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and existing borders.

Hopefully, none of Russia’s allies will view the Ukraine peace plan as license to foment trouble in their region. Clearly, China understands U.S. policy: A peaceful resolution of issues between China and Taiwan, in accord with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. North Korea knows that the U.S. has extended deterrence commitments to our ally in South Korea and Iran should appreciate – - especially since the June 2025 bombing of their Fordow nuclear facility -- that Israel is a close ally of the U.S, with strong security commitments.

Deterrence credibility is important. That’s why the U.S. is providing Taiwan with about $387 million in defensive arms sales in 2024. And that’s why we have a Washington Declaration with South Korea, enhancing the nuclear deterrence alliance. Iran saw clearly, with the bombing of Fordow, how close our allied relationship is with Israel.

These allies of Russia would be making a grievous error if they try to exploit any peace agreement with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. And Mr. Putin would be advised to comply with any peace accord to end the Ukraine war and to refrain from any future attempt to violate the sovereignty of any of the 32 NATO members.

This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani was first published in The Washington Times

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After nearly a decade of development, Russia’s newest launch vehicle is close to its debut flight. The medium-lift Soyuz 5 rocket is expected to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome before the end of the year.

The Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, has released images of final processing of the Soyuz 5 rocket at the Progress Rocket and Space Center in Samara, Russia, earlier this month before the booster was shipped to the launch site in Kazakhstan. It arrived there on November 12.

Although the Soyuz 5 is a new vehicle, it does not represent a major leap forward in technology. Rather it is, in many ways, a conventional reaction to commercial boosters developed in the West as well as the country’s prolonged war against Ukraine. Whether this strategy will be successful remains to be seen.

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The attack on the engineering firm was identified by Arctic Wolf in September before it could disrupt the engineering company’s operations or spread further.

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