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Title: September 24, 2025

GRAY ZONE BRIEF 24 SEPTEMBER 2025

U.S. PLAN FOR GAZA

Forward-looking. U.S. President Donald Trump plans to present his vision for peace in Gaza and postwar governance to Arab and Muslim leaders on Tuesday, Axios reported According to the story, it will be the most concrete plan offered by Trump so far and will include conditions for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and deployments from Arab and Muslim countries to the strip. Leaders and top officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan will attend the meeting. The Indonesian president said on Monday his country would deploy troops for a peacekeeping mission in Gaza.

POLAND & BELARUS

Stuck. More than 1,500 Polish trucks and drivers have been stranded in Belarus since Sept. 12, when Warsaw closed the Belarusian border over concerns about the country’s military exercises with Russia. Transport companies have reportedly incurred huge losses, and an industry association is calling on the government in Warsaw to help. The Interior Ministry said the border will remain shut indefinitely, even after the Zapad drills are concluded, in the interest of national security. The closure could have consequences for a new cargo service carrying goods from Europe to China via Belarus. The first shipment along the route recently arrived in China two weeks after departing from Warsaw, and more deliveries are expected in the coming weeks.

RUSSIA BACKING IRAN

Russian backing. Russia’s deputy foreign minister met on Monday with the ambassadors of Britain, Germany and France in Moscow to discuss the restoration of U.N. sanctions against Iran. Last week, the three European countries triggered a mechanism in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal leading to the reimposition of sanctions that were lifted a decade ago. Moscow has argued that the countries “do not have legal grounds and procedural opportunities for such actions.”

RUSSIAN WORKFORCE GAPS

Foreign workers. Russia is looking to Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh to fill its labor gap, the president of Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sergey Katyrin, said. According to Katyrin, these nations have large numbers of migrant workers who could sign long-term contracts in Russia. This year, the number of migrant laborers from India in Russia has increased by nearly 25 percent compared to 2024. Relatedly, the number of companies in Russia with Indian founders has more than tripled over the past four years to 1,030 as of this month.

U.S., JAPAN & SOUTH KOREA

NYC meeting. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun held trilateral talks in New York on Monday ahead of the U.N. General Assembly meeting. In a joint statement, they expressed joint concern over North Korea’s deepening military ties with Russia and agreed to jointly address Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

U.S. & KAZAKHSTAN

U.S.-Kazakh deal. Kazakhstan signed a $4 billion deal with U.S. manufacturer Wabtec to purchase 300 locomotives, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced.

According to Lutnick, the agreement followed a call between Trump and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. In July, Washington announced 25 percent tariffs on imports from Kazakhstan.

RUSSIA & INDIA

Russian jets. Moscow has reportedly submitted a proposal to New Delhi to supply fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jets and produce them in India. New Delhi is evaluating the offer. In February, India’s deputy defense minister acknowledged his country’s interest in purchasing the aircraft.

U.S. & CHINA

Trip to Beijing. Chinese Premier Li Qiang held talks in Beijing with a delegation of U.S. lawmakers. It was the first official visit by U.S. Congress representatives to China in six years. Li expressed hope that Congress would promote expansion of bilateral cooperation and play a constructive role in strengthening relations.

EGYPT & TURKEY

Egypt and Turkey. Egyptian naval forces have arrived in Turkey to participate in joint naval exercises. The goal of the drills is to strengthen military cooperation between the two countries and exchange expertise.

GZB INFOCUS: UKRAINE UNITED NATIONS

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he believed Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from the U.S. leader’s repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions to end the war.

Trump posted on social media soon after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General gathering of world leaders.

“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote. “With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option.”

The strengthened support from Trump, if it sticks, is a huge win for Zelenskyy, who has urged the American president to keep up his pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war. It was a departure from Trump’s previous suggestions that Ukraine would never be able to reclaim all the territory that Russia has occupied since seizing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

That had disheartened Zelenskyy, Europeans and Ukrainians and called into question the U.S. commitment to U.N. principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. But now, Trump’s view of the battlefield coincides more with Ukraine’s, Zelenskyy said.

“Trump is a game changer by himself,” Zelenskyy told reporters after their meeting.

Trump needles Russia about war in Ukraine

Trump, going back to his 2024 campaign, insisted he would quickly end the war but his peace efforts appear to have stalled following a diplomatic blitz last month, when he held a summit with Putin and European allies.

Trump has acknowledged, including in his U.N. speech to world leaders, that he thought a resolution to this conflict would be “the easiest” because he has had a good relationship with Putin. Trump said he is open to imposing more sanctions on Russia and urged Europe to join in.

“Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote on social media. “This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like ‘a paper tiger.’”

In his speech to the General Assembly, Trump said the war in Ukraine was making Russia “look bad” because it was “supposed to be a quick little skirmish.”

“It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country,” he said. “The only question now is how many lives will be needlessly lost on both sides.”

Before meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump said the “biggest progress” toward ending the conflict “is that the Russian economy is terrible right now.” Zelenskyy said he agreed with Trump’s call for European nations to further halt imports of Russian oil and natural gas.

“We have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up,” Trump told Zelenskyy, who replied that he had “good news” from the battlefield.

How Trump’s stance has shifted on Ukraine

Before his Alaska meeting with Putin last month, Trump repeated that any resolution to the war would require “some land swapping.”

In talks with Zelenskyy and Europeans just afterward, Trump said Putin reiterated that he wants the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas, according to European officials. Days later, Zelenskyy and prominent European leaders came to the White House.

Following those meetings, Trump announced he was arranging for direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. But Putin hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelenskyy and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.

European leaders as well as American lawmakers, including some Republican allies of Trump, have urged the president to dial up stronger sanctions on Russia.

“In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs, which would stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly,” Trump told the General Assembly.

However, he repeated his calls for Europe to “step it up” and stop buying Russian oil, the engine feeding Putin’s war machine.

Push for sanctions and cutting off Russian oil

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said before meeting with Trump that Europe would be imposing more sanctions and tariffs on Russia and that the bloc would be further reducing its imports of Russian energy.

Zelenskyy, speaking at a special U.N. Security Council session on Ukraine, also appealed for stronger U.S. pressure on Russia.

“Moscow fears America and always pays attention to it,” said Zelenskyy, who has had strained ties with him in previous sitdowns and has previously faced White House accusations that he was partly to blame for Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Russia denigrated the Security Council meeting as just the New York stop in the world tour of a “former actor,” a reference to Zelenskyy.

“There is no added value for the establishment of peace in Ukraine generated from today’s meeting,” said Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the U.N. “This will merely become yet another shameful episode in the market of hypocrisy.”

European leaders have supported Zelenskyy’s diplomatic efforts, with some alarmed by the possibility that the war could spread beyond Ukraine as they are facing what they have called Russian provocations.

“I welcome the fact that the president of the United States believes in Ukraine’s ability not only to hold the course” but to prevail, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

NATO allies will hold formal consultations at Estonia’s request on Tuesday, after the Baltic country said three Russian fighter jets entered its airspace last week without authorization.

Trump said he would back NATO countries that choose to shoot down intruding Russian planes, but said direct U.S. involvement would depend on the circumstances.

New strikes in Ukraine as toll of war grows.

The full-scale war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, is taking a heavy toll on Ukrainian civilians. Russia said it shot down three dozen Ukrainian drones heading toward Moscow, while Ukraine said Russian missiles, drones and bombs killed at least two civilians.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also said this month that Ukrainian civilian casualties increased by 40% in the first eight months of this year compared with 2024, as Russia escalated its long-range missile and localized drone strikes.

A U.N. Human Rights Office report released Tuesday described the dire situation of thousands of civilians detained by Russia in areas of Ukraine it has captured.

“Russian authorities have subjected Ukrainian civilian detainees in occupied territory to torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, in a widespread and systematic manner,” the report said.

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—END REPORT