The Kremlin continues to deny the White House's statements regarding the prospect of a meeting between the United States, Ukraine and Russia in the near future. Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on September 1 that "there is no agreement" on a bilateral meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, nor on a trilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump.
This is reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
On August 16, after the US-Russia summit in Alaska, Ushakov said that he did not know when Trump and Putin would meet again and that the leaders had not discussed the prospect of a trilateral meeting. On August 18, however, Trump said he planned meetings.
Ushakov's reiteration of Russia's refusal undermines Trump's ongoing diplomatic efforts to reach a peace agreement in Ukraine.
Putin continues to demonstrate his unwillingness to compromise on Ukraine's complete surrender. On September 1, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in China, he said that the "crisis" in Ukraine arose from a Western-instigated "coup" in Ukraine in 2014, and not "as a result of Russia's attack on Ukraine".
Putin also accused the West of persistent attempts to bring Ukraine into NATO, which posed a direct threat to Russian security.
At the same time, a video address by former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was released, in which he claimed that he had worked to bring Ukraine closer to the EU during his presidency and that his ultimate goal was Ukraine's accession to the EU.
Yanukovych accused Ukraine's EU partners of "incorrect" behavior during the negotiations and criticized the EU for not understanding the difficulties of Ukraine's economic situation. Yanukovych also stated that he had always opposed Ukraine's membership in NATO, which he said would be "a disaster" and "a direct path to civil war". Yanukovych's last public media appearance was in July 2022, when he called on Ukrainians to surrender to Russia.
The time of Yanukovych's video address is unknown, but it begins by claiming that Putin "is absolutely right" - apparently in response to remarks at the SCO meeting.
The Kremlin may claim that Yanukovych is the legitimate leader of Ukraine, not Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, such claims are untrue, as Yanukovych fled Ukraine of his own free will, and Ukraine has held several democratic elections since then.
According to reports, the Russian military command has redeployed relatively "elite" forces of the Marine Corps and the Airborne Forces (APF) to the Donetsk region from the northern part of Sumy region and the Kherson direction. Ukrainian drones operating in the direction of Pokrovsk reported that the Russian military command had redeployed several units from the Kursk region, including elements of the 155th Marine Brigade (Pacific Fleet), to reinforce Russian offensive operations towards Dobropil.
A probable GPS jamming by Russia affected a plane carrying European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen on September 1. The AP reported on September 1 that EC spokeswoman Adriana Podesta noted that Bulgarian authorities suspected "obvious" Russian interference.
Podesta said the plane landed safely. The Financial Times (FT) reported on September 1 that paper maps were used for the landing.
The Bulgarian Air Traffic Service Administration said that problems had been recorded since February 2022. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to a question from the FT that "their information is incorrect".
ISW has previously observed reports that Russian interference in the electronic warfare system significantly affected flights in the Baltic states, Poland and Finland, especially in early 2024.
Ukraine reportedly carried out its first strike with its domestically produced FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile on August 30 against occupied Crimea. On August 31, the Russian opposition newspaper "Astra" reported that Ukrainian forces had carried out a "Neptune" missile strike against a Russian border post near occupied Voloshyn, Crimea, on August 30.
Sources from the Main Directorate of Military Intelligence (GUR) of Ukraine told the Ukrainian publication "Militarny" on August 31 that Ukrainian forces used a "Flamingo" cruise missile, not a "Neptune" missile, to strike the Russian border post.
ISW previously reported on August 31 that Ukrainian forces carried out this strike with a "Neptune" missile, based on evidence available at the time.
AP reported on August 21 that Ukraine has begun mass production of its new "Flamingo" cruise missiles, which have a range of up to three thousand kilometers and can carry warheads of up to 1,150 kilograms.
Ukrainian authorities have reportedly gathered new evidence that the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, approves of war crimes against Ukrainian prisoners of war. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) reported on September 1 that Kadyrov said in a speech that he had ordered Chechen military commanders to shoot Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield rather than take them prisoner.
The SBU added that Kadyrov also ordered Chechen soldiers to place Ukrainian prisoners of war on the roofs of military facilities in Grozny, Chechnya, to act as human shields against Ukrainian drone strikes. Kadyrov's statements approving war crimes are consistent with claims in March 2025 by Chechen special forces commander "Akhmat" Apti Alaudinov that Russian forces used the same color identification tape as Ukrainian forces during a covert attack behind Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region, which may constitute an act of perfidy, a war crime under the Geneva Convention.
2024 and 2025 saw a sharp increase in credible reports and footage of Russian forces executing Ukrainian prisoners of war. ISW continues to assess that Russian military commanders are either complicit in or directly allowing their subordinates to carry out systematic executions in direct violation of international law.