This was Russia today Thursday, November 13, 2025

Howdy, folks. In the newsletter below, we review Meduza’s recent interview with Celeste Wallander, the former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs who oversaw U.S. military assistance to Ukraine during the Biden administration. Let us know if you’re enjoying the newsletter’s new format, why don’t you.

Celeste Wallander warns that Trump is chasing illusions about Putin, says Moscow will only shift if U.S. reinstates full military support and imposes steep new sanctions

In September 2025, Celeste Wallander — the White House official who oversaw U.S. military assistance to Ukraine during the Biden administration — wrote an article in Foreign Affairs decrying Donald Trump’s Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin. POTUS should have “learned” from Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Reykjavik summit with Mikhail Gorbachev, when the American leader refused to compromise on his “Star Wars” missile-defense project and sent his Soviet counterpart home empty-handed. Wallander acknowledged that “Putin’s Russia is not Gorbachev’s Soviet Union,” but she stressed that the Kremlin today isn’t “invulnerable” and that “sufficient economic hardship could disturb the quiescence of Russian society.”

In an interview with Meduza, Wallander expanded on this theme, arguing that the West must impose “economic costs, military costs, and political costs [on Russia] if the Kremlin is ever going to change its demands for a peace settlement” in Ukraine. This will lead to collateral damage, Wallander admitted, “because you can’t impose a cost on a political leadership without imposing costs on a country, regrettably.” At the same time, she explained that “there is no short-term answer to imposing sufficient costs on Putin to get him to change his position.” Western pressure must be sustained throughout Russia’s invasion to influence the Kremlin’s decision-making. 

Economic costs: “Much more extensive sanctions.” Wallander urged “the expropriation finally of those [Russian] assets, not just freezing them, but expropriating them and handing them to Ukraine.” She also described a proposal by the U.S. Senate’s Republican leadership for high tariffs on buyers of Russian oil (for example, a 500-percent tariff on China) as “a step that [Trump] should take if he wants to increase economic costs” on Moscow. “It would be very costly,” Wallander conceded. “It would not just be costly to the United States. It would be costly to the global economy, and that is a serious decision, but if President Trump is that determined to achieve a peace settlement, you have to be willing to accept costs yourself to achieve an objective, a high-priority objective.”

Military and political costs: Focusing on specific weapon systems (such as Tomahawk missiles) misunderstands Ukraine’s security needs. Wallander said Kyiv needs a return to the Biden administration’s policy of “full security assistance support” — “not just allowing Europeans to buy weapons here and there.” American “full support” would allow Ukraine to “fight as long as it takes,” Wallander said, arguing that such a policy would “signal to the Kremlin that actually time is not on [its] side.” She attributed Russia’s current ability to “win on the battlefield” to insufficient U.S. assistance.

Trump vs. Biden

Wallander described President Trump as “not alone among some Americans” in his apparent belief that Vladimir Putin can be “tempted” into abandoning Ukraine by “dangling some economic benefits” or trying to pry apart the Moscow–Beijing partnership. She warned that the White House today is operating with a shortage of Russia specialists, following purges and mass resignations in the federal government: “There is a whole generation of career foreign service officers who had served in the U.S. State Department that served in Russia at the embassy, who have worked on Russia, and most of them either left early because they did not see the opportunity to have their professional voices heard or they have been fired.” 

Asked to name a time when President Biden acted contrary to her advice, Wallander demurred and then recalled the Pentagon’s readiness “to provide more and more capable defense assistance to Ukraine” than the White House was prepared to offer at certain times, because of “political decisions.” On the subject of President Biden’s negotiating position, Wallander stressed that he “was not going to get ahead of Ukraine in deciding what an acceptable negotiation looks like.” Biden rejected the neutral mediator role that President Trump has adopted. At the same time, despite his administration’s “full support for Ukraine,” Biden tried to avoid framing the conflict as “NATO’s war against Russia.” “Otherwise, Putin is able to say, ‘See, it’s a war of NATO against Russia,’ and that would create concerns globally and criticism of the United States and NATO,” Wallander told Meduza.

The Archive Collection: Nothing can stop Meduza from releasing anniversary merch — even if we have to make it ourselves. Check out our latest drop now!

We have a new tradition here at Meduza: every year on our birthday, we update the merch in our online store, Magaz. In 2025, we turned 11 — and despite the considerable challenges we’ve faced this year, we’ve found a pretty original way to bring you a new collection. Here’s a look at the latest clothing and accessories you can buy to rep Meduza and support our work.

Today’s reporting from Meduza

🗞️ Russia’s refineries are leveraging spare capacity to blunt Ukrainian drone damage — Reuters | Meduza breaks down today’s biggest Russia-related news stories, November 13, 2025

Russia is maintaining oil output despite major Ukrainian drone strikes by activating spare refining capacity and quickly repairing damaged units. Meanwhile, Ukraine warns it needs frozen Russian assets to survive; Russian intelligence infiltrates exile groups; a new “Rubikon” unit hunts Ukrainian drone operators; foreign trademarks are under assault in Russia; a Chechen woman dies after a forced return; students in Voronezh face pressure to install a state messenger app; and Primorsky Krai residents protest a new car tax.

🇰🇵 North Korea plans to sell its ‘cure-all’ drugs in Russia. There’s no evidence they work. | North Korean companies are seeking to enter the Russian market with unproven “cure-all” medicines — filing trademarks and exploring loopholes to sell the products despite a total lack of clinical evidence and no indication they’ll be officially approved.

🛢️ Top buyers spooked and Lukoil in crisis: Russia feels the heat from Washington’s latest oil sanctions | Washington’s new sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft have rattled global buyers, slashed demand from China and India, and pushed Russia’s oil sector into a mounting crisis that now threatens Lukoil’s foreign assets and even its independence.

🤳 To plug budget gaps, Russia slaps new quasi-tax on smartphones and laptops | Russia plans to introduce a new “technology levy” on smartphones, laptops, and other electronics to fill budget gaps, a move analysts say will push up consumer prices and expand the shadow market while replacing shrinking state subsidies for the domestic electronics industry.

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