Weekly Developments

Ukraine–Russia developments — 6 September 2026

Published 2026-09-06Reporting window 2026-08-31 → 2026-09-063 developments · 8 watch items reviewed

The week opened with an announced escalation and closed with the smallest de-escalation the two sides have ever managed to agree on, and the two do not contradict each other. On 1 September, in Bishkek, Putin said the armed forces had been ordered to prepare and carry out mass strikes on Ukraine's energy facilities in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russia; the night after, Kyiv was struck for what reporting described as a sixth consecutive day. On 5 September Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin at the Kremlin for about three hours, and the two governments agreed to stop striking each other's capitals for three days while the envoys travelled on to Kyiv. Nothing else stopped. Reporting states Ukraine proposed a broader three-day ceasefire and that Russia declined it. Recorded late, and dated to when it happened: the strike on a munitions store at Myla on 28–29 August, whose secondary detonations killed 38 — the deadliest attack in the Kyiv region this year, and absent from last week's brief.

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