Russia Summer Offensive Continues; G7 Sanctions Implementation Begins; Trump Attention Shifts to Moscow
Russian forces continued overnight long-range strikes against Ukraine through Friday. The Institute for the Study of War maintains that Vladimir Putin’s decree expanding the Russian armed forces will not affect the battlefield situation. The Ukrainian drone strikes on the Moscow refinery this week continue compounding the deep-strike campaign. With the Iran deal formally signed and Pezeshkian named as counterpart, Trump’s attention is now firmly swinging back to Ukraine. The G7 sanctions implementation begins through European capitals; the structural Russia shadow-oil-fleet sanctions package is now in operational rollout.
The G7 communique commitment to provide additional long-range capabilities materially expands Ukraine’s deep-strike envelope. The CIA Saturday-week-ago Oreshnik IRBM warning has stretched well past the original 24-48 hour window; the structural conclusion is that the warning either signalled a missed strike opportunity or that Russia stood down. The Trump “Moscow deal could be next” framing remains the structural carrot-and-stick US pressure architecture on Russia. The first 30-day Iran-framework compliance window continues; failure on the Iran track would materially compress the US bandwidth for Russia-track pressure.