PUBLISHED on August 11, 2025, 11:04 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary – Contrary to President Trump’s campaign promises, Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine have more than doubled since his inauguration, a new BBC Verify analysis shows.
-As a high-stakes summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin is set for this Friday in Alaska, the war on the ground is intensifying, with Russia recently capturing the strategic city of Chasiv Yar.
-Despite Trump’s pressure tactics, analysts are skeptical of a breakthrough, with some viewing the summit itself as a “diplomatic coup” for Putin that rewards him with a face-to-face meeting on U.S. soil.
Russian Airstrikes Have More Than Doubled Since Trump’s Inauguration
While Donald Trump came back into office promising to end the war between Russia and Ukraine as soon as his first day in office, nothing of the sort has happened.
And according to a new report, the number of drones and missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine has “more than doubled” since Trump came back into office.
Per the BBC, which cited a BBC Verify analysis, “attacks had already been rising under former President Joe Biden in 2024 but climbed sharply after Trump’s election victory in November. Since he returned to office in January, recorded aerial attacks from Moscow have reached their highest levels of the war.”
The BBC Verify data cites “daily incident reports issued by the Ukrainian Air Force.” Russia launched 27,158 munitions in the first six months of Trump’s new term, compared to 11,614 in the last six months that Joe Biden was president.
“This brutal war was brought on by Joe Biden’s incompetence, and it has gone on for far too long,” White House deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told the BBC.
“President Trump wants to stop the killing, which is why he is selling American-made weapons to Nato members and threatening Putin with biting tariffs and sanctions if he does not agree to a ceasefire.”
Can Ukraine Win?
The Week, this week, looked into the question of who is winning the war, after Russia took the city of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region.
“With peace talks continuing to stall even as Ukraine battles to slow the advance of Russian forces further into its territory, the outcome of the war is increasingly likely to be decided by two key factors: supply of soldiers and maintaining international support,” the Week analysis said.
The report also noted that Ukraine has relaxed age limits for conscription. At the same time, there are indications that Russia’s advances are slowing.
“Russia’s territorial gains amount to five times less than they were five months ago, with casualty rates rising from Moscow’s attempts to break through Kyiv’s defences,” The Daily Telegraph reported, citing a NATO official.
“Western officials and analysts say Ukraine was able to stall Russia’s potentially war-winning offensive in the east of the country through a combination of improved drone tactics and defences.”
Talks Approach
The report arrives as President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Alaska on Friday, in what will be their first face-to-face meeting since Trump’s return to the White House.
Per CNN, the details of the summit, including a specific venue, are yet to be determined, with the event just four days away.
“The uncertainty surrounding the summit as the week opened underscored the extraordinary moment Trump finds himself in seven months into his second term,” CNN said. “After entering office hoping to leverage his relationship with Putin to end the Ukraine war, only to become disillusioned by the Russian leader’s duplicity, Trump is now embarking on the biggest test yet of his long-held faith in face-to-face diplomacy.”
“Next Friday will be important, because it will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said this week of the meeting, in an ABC News interview.
CNBC, meanwhile, noted that even the announcement of the Trump-Putin talks has had a positive effect on Russia’s economy.
“This is already a big win for Putin to be invited for the first time since 2007 to meet with the U.S. president on American soil. Is a wonderful achievement, from his point of view, no conditions and the absence of Ukraine, the absence of any European representation. This is already a triumph,” Richard Portes, head of the Economics faculty at the London Business School, told the network.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
Defense Watch
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Swamplaw Yankee
August 12, 2025 at 4:58 am
Oh Boy: the op-ed bias boys appear in force.
Just state: I hate UKRAINE and forget the selective array of data for your bias.
The omission of the role of the USA in the 2014 re-start of the ancient 1000 year old genocide of Ukrainians by the ethnic russkie peasants.
Yes, the facts please! In 2014 the POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal unilaterally greenlighted the military loss to NATO of the Ukraine’s Crimean soil, families and Black/Azov Sea zones to the prime, vile NATO cold war enemy, tsarling Putin.
There is zero, zip public record of this world class betrayal of the WEST by POTUS Obama being shared and/or discussed with any of the betrayed allies of the USA.
So, in 2025 the USA is demanding that the forces of the Axis of Evil assembled by the prime enemy, the Han CCP Zi regime be able to use all their resources to genocide Ukrainians.
Worst, the USA POTUS refuses to even know what the statistics of the Drone reserves of Ukraine are and will be. That is, the USA demands that the Ukraine itself find their own cash to make the drone numbers that match the drone numbers produced in total by the Zi regime’s “Axis of Evil” combo.
Zi is the prime enemy of the USA and the MAGA POTUS demands to facilitate the attack on Ukraine to genocide Ukrainians! The POTUS demand that this new drone technology is of no concern to the US is, of course, false and against US security needs. Ukraine can not self-fund resistance to America’s prime enemy and all its allies.
The long game to genocide Ukrainians is on. In 1932-33, while wearing a different Halloween costume, Putin’s pappy helped genocide 20,000,000 Ukrainians using starvation as the genocide ruskie tool. The russkie response is that there were never a genocide starvation of Ukrainians and those historic films are just a western ploy to make the uniformed commie russkies ( Putin’s pappy) look bad.
The pre-payment by Putin of $10,000,000 US gold bullion to each and every Ukrainian mass abducted victim as reparation and compensation immediately is suddenly dropped by the MSM. The new MSM line is that 11 years of sex trading of mass abducted Ukrainian children topic will be avoided, and that POTUS Trump will reward the russkie sex trader with promise of zero, that is no compensation for 11 years of mass abduction. It’s all a free gift from the POTUS and the hundreds of thousands of abused Ukrainian kids should keep their mouths shut.
The slime show of a unilateral MSM scam POTUS negotiation slithers on. _-30-