September 7th 2026 Summary of Action

Politics

Ambassador Witkoff and Mr. Kushner were in Moscow on the 5th and met with President Putin and then flew to Kyiv and met with President Zelenskyy on the 6th.

A three day ceasefire covering Kyiv and Moscow was in place during their visit.

A broad ceasefire was offered by Kyiv but Putin rejected it.

More broadly, Putin reiterated Russia’s demand for all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, which includes considerable areas of land that the Russians have yet to reach.

President Zelenskyy met several times with the two men on Sunday.

The two men told Zelenskyy that they want to return to a three-sided negotiation process (Ukraine - US - Russia), that they will meet with President Trump when they return to Washington DC and that Trump will then call Zelenskyy and Putin.

Witkoff and Kushner apparently suggested that the Russian negotiating position will ease after the Duma elections September 18th - 20th.

European Pravda, quoting an unnamed source in the French government, reported that the French, German, UK and Ukrainian governments are now preparing their terms for further negotiations with Russia, based on the results of France’s national security advisor Emmanuel Bonne’s meeting with Putin, as well as Bonne’s meeting with Witkoff and Kushner yesterday. Bonne and the national security advisors of Germany and the UK (Günter Sautter and Jonathan Powell respectively) all met with Witkoff and Kushner in Kyiv.

The four countries have a list of demands that include security guarantees and return of Ukrainian territories, as well as the process for relief of sanctions.

This morning Kyiv Mayor Klitschko banned mass entertainment or sporting in open air arenas or sites without shelters, effective September 10th.

"Regarding restrictions on mass gatherings in the city. Due to the deteriorating security situation in the capital, all entertainment and sports events in open areas and facilities without shelters will be temporarily banned.”

(Please see my “Thoughts” below).

Ground Operations

Fighting continues along the length of the line of contact. Of note, Ukrainian forces made marginal gains at several points east of Slovyansk. What this has done, and the same has taken place at other points along the front lines, is to generate multiple small, would-be salients. As Russian forces continue to probe Ukrainian positions and infiltrate into various towns, the result is a series of small “fingers” that represent possible salients for Ukrainian forces. Russian forces are, as per their SOP, trying to cut off these small salients and straighten lines, but it is slow going.

The arrival of autumn weather in the next 4 - 6 weeks, and the accompanying rain, will force most resupply and personnel movements onto the roads, simplifying targeting and complicating operations on these lines.

Meanwhile, Russian forces appear to be moving additional troops forward in the Pokrovsk - Kostiantinivka area, and may have begun a troop rotation north of Sumy.

As first noted a couple of weeks ago, Russian forces north-east of Kharkiv (north of the Oskil River border crossing) are pressing to the north-west while other Russian forces, east of Vovchansk) are pressing to the south-east. On paper, this presents an opportunity for the encirclement of perhaps a brigade sized Ukrainian army formation. However, as also noted, Russian forces are not moving quickly enough to complete such an encirclement. 

There has been Russian reporting - propaganda - over the weekend that such an encirclement took place. But there is no information that supports that statement.

Russian forces are still trying to “cut off” that corner of Ukraine, but they have not yet done so, and would not appear to be close to achieving that result. Russian forces continue to fight the Russian way of war, which is slow, deliberate, and from an operational and tactical sense, low risk. Casualties will be high on both sides, but there is very little possibility of the Russian forces making glaring errors.

In the south-east Ukrainian forces continue to clear and consolidate terrain they retook in the March April time frame, from Fillia (about 20 miles south-west of Pokrovsk) to roughly the Dobropillia area (another 30 miles further south-west, about 15 miles north of Hulyaipole). It should be noted that both sides have thinned out forces in this area and that, if there is a spot on the line that could change relatively quickly, this is probably it.

At the same time, Russian forces continue to press north-west and west from the Hulyaipole area, and long range probes have pushed out to areas north-east of Orikhiv.

Of note, the Russian probes and infiltrations toward Orikhiv from the west, the south-east, and as just mentioned above, from the north-east, all threaten the GLOCs that support Orikhiv. This will be of particular note in the coming weeks as cold, rainy weather arrives.

Air and Maritime Operations 

There was, as noted above, a three day ceasefire covering Kyiv and Moscow (ends tonight), but other strikes continued.

Over the weekend Ukrainian forces continued strikes against Russian oil and logistics infrastructure, hitting the Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant and the nearby Avangard munitions factory (about 650 miles east of Moscow), and an oil refinery in Ryazan (about 110 miles south-east of Moscow.

Russian forces contend to strike the power grid and logistics related targets, launching an unspecified number of Iskander ballistic missiles, Kh-31P anti radiation missiles and at least 396 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace, 313 of which were shot down.

Power outages were reported in Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and Sumy oblasts. 

Approximately half of the strike drones are now jet powered strike drones.

There were, as well, a number of Banderol “loitering” drones - please see my “Thoughts” below.

Thoughts

I read an interesting article over the weekend which related how people in Kyiv are dealing with drones and missile strikes. Despite Mayor Klitschko’s efforts to keep safe the citizens of his fair city, it appears the citizens are taking a different approach. One might call it studied indifference. People have learned when to expect attacks, but also when to ignore them. Banderols apparently are readily recognizable and can be easily judged to be either a threat or something to be ignored. Other drones also can be waved away as inconsequential as the noise indicates it is “passing by” and therefore represent no immediate threat to a given listener.

This is a testimony to how adaptive people can become.

It is also a story I’ve read elsewhere, both in other reports from Ukraine and from reports from Crimea and elsewhere in Russia. 

As with the English, and Germans, and Japanese, and Russians in World War II, and others elsewhere, people can adapt to nearly anything, they do so rapidly and, in the case of this war, it appears that they have.

What does that mean? The majority of the people of Ukraine - and Russia - are not going to rise up and demand Zelenskyy - or Putin - end the war. In fact I would suspect that if you could poll those people who are growing increasingly competent at dodging strike drones around Kyiv, as they grow more capable of dodging drones, they become more adamant that their forces need to hit Moscow harder. And I suppose the same is true of Russians. It means that the people aren’t going to give in. And that means this war is going to go on for quite some time… 

v/r pete