From minsk to anchorage: Has Russia repeated the same mistake?

“The Kyiv regime […] has adopted the tactics of hitting our civilian facilities and infrastructure. They are trying to create problems with energy supplies.” That admission by Vladimir Putin would have been almost unthinkable a year earlier.

In the summer of 2025, it was Russia that dominated the air war. Drones were pummelling Ukrainian cities day and night while ballistic missiles targeted ammo depots and troop concentrations. The attacks continued even as the Russian president met Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025, against the backdrop of increasingly public disputes between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky.

After the meeting, Moscow appeared to believe it had secured the most favourable diplomatic position since the start of the war. With Russian forces maintaining the initiative on the ground and in the air, the Kremlin seemed to conclude that Washington was increasingly prepared to consider a settlement closer to Russia's preferred terms.

The ghost of minsk

Today, this conclusion has fallen flat to the point that Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, admitted in late June 2026 that the summit may have been a U.S. "ploy to buy time to rearm the Kyiv regime. "

This is not the first time the Kremlin has arrived at that conclusion. More than 10 years before the Anchorage meeting, representatives of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met in Minsk to negotiate a peace agreement aimed at ending the war in eastern Ukraine.

The final agreement, which became known as Minsk II, was supposed to achieve an immediate ceasefire as well as reduce the number of troops on the frontline, exchange prisoners and, most importantly, give special status to Donetsk and Luhansk (the two breakaway regions supporting Russia) through changes to the Ukrainian Constitution.

Unfortunately, the agreement failed to materialize. And while it did achieve a relative reduction in the intensity of the war and some prisoner exchanges, it failed to produce the intended political settlement or restore Ukrainian sovereignty over the separatist-held territories. By February 2022, most of its 13 provisions remained either partly implemented or entirely unimplemented.

This leads to a question: if Russia was aware of the lack of implementation of Minsk II, why didn’t it launch a full invasion of Ukraine back then? Simply put, the Kremlin believed that Minsk II might convert its battlefield gains into lasting political control over Ukraine at a lower military, economic and diplomatic cost than a wider invasion.

Even days prior to the full eruption of the conflict, Putin accused Kyiv of refusing to implement the agreement and still insisted that the only way to avoid bloodshed was to respect its clauses. Only when war became inevitable after recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk did Putin explicitly declare it long dead.

Unbeknownst to him at the time, the idea that Minsk II would convert Russia's battlefield gains into lasting political control over Ukraine ended up producing the opposite result. It was Ukraine that used the time granted by Minsk II to rearm and strengthen itself militarily. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel herself confirmed it when, shortly after the Russian invasion, she declared that “the 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time” and that “Ukraine also used this time to become stronger.”

The actions of Ukraine’s Western allies gave further weight to Moscow’s belief that Minsk II had allowed Kyiv to strengthen itself. Trump repeatedly boasted that Ukraine would have collapsed without American military support, contrasting his decision to supply Javelin anti-tank missiles with Barack Obama’s provision of non-lethal assistance. Between 2015 and 2022, NATO members also trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, supplied communications systems, radars, vehicles, drones and anti-tank weapons, and helped reform Ukraine’s command structures along NATO lines.

The weapons and training made a difference when the Russian assaults finally came. It was Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones that destroyed the fuel convoys feeding the advancing Russian columns. And it was Javelin missiles that destroyed the tanks once they were forced to stop their advance due to the lack of fuel.

Moscow later portrayed the experience as proof not only that a ceasefire could be used to rearm Ukraine, but also that Western guarantees could not be trusted. Russian officials have since repeatedly warned against accepting another pause that would allow Kyiv and its Western allies to rebuild their forces.

History repeats itself

Yet the language of Russian officials today, suggests (remove comma) that Moscow once again placed considerable faith in what they considered to be Western assurances. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov accused Washington of failing to uphold the Anchorage understandings, while Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the United States had departed from their “fundamental” terms. No agreement was ever published, and Washington maintained that only proposals had been discussed, yet Moscow continued to invoke the “spirit and letter” of Anchorage as though a clear political commitment had been made.

Russia claimed to have learned from Minsk II that diplomatic ambiguity could work against it. Yet at Anchorage, Moscow appears to have repeated the same mistake, treating proposals and political signals as evidence that a settlement was already moving in its favour.

The cost of waiting

While Moscow waited for that understanding to take shape, the balance in the air war began to shift. In early March 2026, Ukraine launched its deep-strike campaign targeting refineries, oil terminals, depots, pumping stations and strategic industry deep inside Russia. The attacks came at a critical time. The United States, then, temporarily eased sanctions on Russian oil, issuing waivers that allowed crude to be sold to stabilize global energy markets during the Iran crisis. What could have provided the revenue needed to further tip the balance in Russia's favour instead became a bottomless pit, swallowing investment in repairs, protection and reconstruction.

Hundreds of air defense systems had to be redeployed around Russia to protect their vital infrastructure. Dozens of fighter jets are forced to patrol the skies over Russian territory daily, drawing critical resources away from the frontline. And a population that was once complacent about the war now feels its effects daily. Ukraine managed to achieve Russia’s biggest fear, bringing the war to its own land.

And it didn’t stop there. Once the deep-strike campaign showed its effectiveness, the Ukrainians added a new objective to their campaign: Russia’s Azov Sea Fleet. During the week of July 5, Ukraine struck 105 Russian ships in there, including dozens of grain carriers, forcing Moscow to suspend its operations there. With around 25% of all Russian wheat passing through this area, the cost to the Russian economy could be substantial.

The price of certainty

One year ago, Moscow believed time was working in its favour. It held the initiative on the battlefield, dominated the air war and appeared convinced that diplomacy was beginning to reflect those realities. Today, the picture is markedly different. The war has reached Russia's own territory, its strategic infrastructure has become a daily target and resources once dedicated to the front are increasingly being diverted to defend the homeland.

The military advantage that once strengthened Moscow’s negotiating position is no longer as overwhelming as it appeared after Anchorage, making it increasingly difficult for Moscow to dictate the terms of a future settlement. For the Kremlin, the bitter conclusion may be that it once again mistook diplomatic possibilities for political realities.