Donald Trump is doing a victory lap in Israel and the Middle East, as all the hostages held by Hamas are released in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners. The ceasefire has taken hold, and although this is just a first step it is indeed a big one. There's no guarantee the war is over -- the ceasefire could end and Israel could continue their attacks, if no agreement can be reached over the ultimate status of Hamas, but at least if the war does eventually continue it will do so without hostages being at the heart of it. Which is definite progress.

But there is another war still raging, and there are developments with regard to Ukraine and Russia that are worth discussing, so while everyone else is reporting on the Middle East I thought it'd be a good time to take a look at where things stand.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has bogged down. It has become just as much as an intractable standoff as World War I, in fact, with the same trenchlines and miniscule progress on the battlefield. It is a meat-grinder for both sides, but neither side has made huge territorial gains and probably won't. This war has changed warfare forever, since the drone technology in use (on both sides) has made things like tanks almost obsolete. The technological advancements in weaponry in Ukraine will soon be copied by all nations (all nations that don't want to get easily beat in their next war, at the very least).

The biggest "front" of the war, however, is the relentless air attacks from both sides. And on that front, Ukraine is having some successes that might actually be instrumental in forcing Vladimir Putin to the bargaining table. To build on these successes, Trump is now considering providing Tomahawk misses to Ukraine to use on targets deep within Russia, which would be an escalation -- but not a huge one, since Ukraine already has drones and missiles capable of hitting targets hundreds of miles into Russian territory.

The new successes Ukraine has been having -- while getting pounded themselves by overwhelming waves of drones and missiles from Russia -- are in targeting oil facilities. This is hitting Russia where it hurts, in a bigger and bigger way. Today, the New York Times ran a deep dive into all of this, with some embedded reporting from the battlefield. Here's the basic story:

"The most effective sanctions, the ones that work the fastest, are the fires at Russia's oil refineries," President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said last month. On Monday, Mr. Zelensky said he would meet on Friday with President Trump at the White House as Ukraine has been seeking more American weapons to strike Russia, including Tomahawk missiles.

. . .

Analysts say the drone campaign is not a decisive blow to Russia, but it is hurting ordinary Russians, and even an autocrat like Mr. Putin keeps an eye on public opinion.

By last month, Ukraine had blown up or damaged refining equipment capable of processing 1.5 million barrels of crude per day, or about 20 percent of the country's refining capacity, according to Avanpal Sehmi Singh, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie.

Increasingly severe gasoline shortages have hit multiple regions of Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, and the price is up about 40 percent since the beginning of the year. Filling stations have limited purchases to five gallons per driver -- and in some cases run out of gasoline entirely, selling only diesel, Russia's Izvestia newspaper reported.

Kommersant, a leading Russian business news outlet, said in late September that half of the stations in Russian-occupied Crimea had stopped selling gasoline. Other news media have reported people waiting overnight in lines at the pump.

The government has prohibited exports of gasoline since midsummer to address the problem, but it has not acknowledged any cause for the shortage.

. . .

When a military factory is hit, it might be repaired in 10 days, he said, "while oil refineries keep burning all these 10 days." In addition, repairs are hampered by the inability to import equipment from Europe and the United States.

Even if you control the country's media, there are some things it is impossible to hide -- like gasoline shortages. And like big huge fires at refineries that can be seen by the public for miles around. This is bringing the war home to average Russians in a way that nothing else yet has, which is why it is such an important development.

It is important in another regard as well. Because Donald Trump has refused to lift one finger to increase economic pain on Russia ever since he took office (zero new sanctions), Ukraine has been left on its own to try to do so themselves. When the war began, they only had drones capable of reaching maybe 60 miles. Now they are striking hundreds of miles deep into Russian territory with drones that they build themselves (in August they hit one of Russia's biggest refineries a full 800 miles from the border). War is always a great driver of technological advances in weaponry, and the progress of the Ukrainians has been nothing short of remarkable.

Russia has been using the tactic of hitting Ukrainian energy sectors from the very start, but Ukraine is now catching up. Russia does not actually export much gasoline normally, they make most of their money off of crude oil and natural gas. Which means: "As a result, striking the refineries hits Russian people's lifestyles and expenses, but does not cut deeply into the flow of money to the Kremlin." But it does make the pain of war more visible to the Russian people, in a big way.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, however, the strategy has had a "red light/green light" problem from the American side:

Ukraine began targeting Russian oil refineries in March 2024, and then backed away from that strategy under pressure from the Biden administration. Early this year, Mr. Trump, hoping to orchestrate a truce, demanded a moratorium on strikes on energy infrastructure, but it was short-lived.

Ukrainian officials and troops have long been frustrated by American concerns that hitting Russia hard would lead to escalation. Washington has grudgingly provided some powerful weapons, but prohibited using them against targets in Russia.

Using homegrown weapons gives Ukraine more freedom to act, and the campaign against refineries ramped up sharply in August, when the 14th regiment alone hit 17 sites in Russia.

The Ukrainian weapons, as mentioned, have been getting better and better as time goes on. But they're still not on a par with what the United States could provide. And with the new strained relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, an attitude shift seems to be happening:

This summer, a Ukrainian company unveiled the Flamingo, a cruise missile with a claimed range of more than 1,800 miles. The Neptune is an anti-ship missile adapted to hit land targets. Mr. Zelensky said in recent days that both had now been used to strike inside Russia.

Drones such as the Furious and the Beaver are cobbled together from plastic, carbon fiber, Styrofoam and cardboard. Though relatively small, they can fly about 600 miles -- far enough to hit Moscow if they can breach Russian air defenses.

Ukraine has promoted its increasing reliance on domestically produced arms to strike Russia. But it is also in talks with the United States to obtain Tomahawk missiles, which could add another long-range weapon to the campaign.

Mr. Putin has warned that giving Tomahawks to Kyiv would be "a qualitatively new stage of escalation" by the United States in the war. On Sunday, Mr. Trump hinted that he might try to use the possibility of sending the missiles to Ukraine to pressure Mr. Putin into settling the war. Mr. Zelensky will meet with Mr. Trump on Friday in Washington.

. . .

Kyiv has framed the strikes on Russia as aiding Mr. Trump's peace initiative, aiming to show that Ukraine has enough firepower to make Moscow think twice about continuing to fight.

Mr. Trump has said he supports the strikes. In August, he wrote on social media that "it is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country." He went on to criticize the Biden administration for curtailing Ukraine's ability to hit inside Russia. Mr. Trump had previously faulted that administration for ultimately letting Ukraine use American long-range missiles to strike Russia.

Trump appears open to at least using the threat of Tomahawks as a bargaining chip with Putin, which is also a new development. Trump admitted he would first broach the subject with Putin, before he agreed to allow Ukraine to use them:

"I might have to speak to Russia, to be honest with you, about Tomahawks. Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don't think so," Trump said. "I think I might speak to Russia about that, in all fairness. I told that to President Zelenskyy, because Tomahawks are a new step of aggression. You understand that."

"Yeah, I might tell him that if the war is not settled, that we may very well -- we may not, but we may do it," he added. "I think it's appropriate to bring up. I want to see the war settled."

The president's comments represent his strongest to date on the possibility of selling Tomahawk missiles to fellow NATO countries, who will then supply them to Ukraine. Trump had previously said that he wants to know what Ukraine plans to do with the Tomahawk missiles because he doesn't want to escalate the war between Russia and Ukraine.

One final point needs making. Note that Trump would still make other NATO countries pay for the missiles instead of just giving them to Ukraine. Which brings me back to a bit from that original Times article. Because this was a rather astonishing fact to read:

Ukraine's arms industry, including drone makers, has expanded significantly during the war, but it is not operating at full capacity.

The most urgent limitation is no longer the ability to make weapons, but the ability to pay the makers. Ukraine is pressing its Western allies to put up the money to increase its production.

"If we had billions more dollars, the course of the war would change very quickly," Casper said.

That is shocking -- Ukraine's drone industry, even in the midst of a brutal years-long war, is not operating at full capacity. So if Trump or even Europe wanted to easily increase pressure on Russia right now, all that would be required would be more money for Ukraine's home-grown drone/missile industry.

Because if they can take out 20 percent of Russia's refining capability with what they've got now, just think of what they could do with more weapons to deploy.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant