KYIV, September 11 — A weekly strategic-affairs newsletter published by a retired Australian major general has put a new diplomatic push on Ukraine at the top of its agenda, framing the week’s developments around diplomacy conducted alongside the fighting rather than instead of it. The publication, Futura Doctrina, is written by Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army Major General, author and strategist who is a fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Lowy Institute, and who states that he is banned in Russia.
His update, titled “Diplomacy on the Side. A New Peace Push in Ukraine, General Drapatyi’s Leadership Principles, and Chinese Aggression in the Pacific,” appeared on Sunday, 6 September 2026, at 03:43 UTC.
A Newsletter’s Weekly Round-Up, Not a Single Event
What the update offers is a round-up of the week’s strategic commentary rather than the report of one new event. Its own description states that it covers a new diplomatic push in Ukraine from the Trump administration, the strategic guidance of General Drapatyi, continued deep strikes, and the newsletter’s recurring “Big Five” section of recommended readings. No specific terms, participants, locations or outcomes of that diplomatic push are stated in the available material.
Nor does the source provide casualty figures, strike targets or direct quotations from General Drapatyi. Against this backdrop, the item is best read as a survey of how one close observer of the war is ordering the week’s priorities.
Futura Doctrina is a Substack newsletter with about ten thousand subscribers. It describes itself as “a conversation about technology, ideas, people and their convergence in contemporary war and competition,” and its coverage extends to the war in Ukraine and to Chinese aggression against Taiwan and Indo-Pacific defence.
Drapatyi, Deep Strikes and the Wider Picture
The update highlights General Mykhailo Drapatyi, a Ukrainian officer, and his strategic guidance or leadership principles. The source material does not detail those principles, and it does not set out his command record beyond identifying him as a Ukrainian officer. The reference to deep strikes concerns the campaign of long-range drone and missile attacks by both sides against targets far behind the front lines, a feature of the war since 2022.
That campaign has become one of the defining characteristics of the conflict, and it sits alongside the diplomatic track rather than pausing for it. The “Chinese Aggression in the Pacific” element of the title reflects the publication’s standing focus on Chinese military pressure against Taiwan and Indo-Pacific defence issues — a reminder that for strategists in Canberra and Washington, the European and Indo-Pacific theatres are increasingly read together.
The subject matter places the 6 September update within the wider context of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on 24 February 2022, and of the long-running diplomatic efforts to end or freeze the conflict. The update’s reference to a new peace push from the Trump administration follows earlier US-led diplomatic engagement on the war, including the 2025 talks in Saudi Arabia and Istanbul and the August 2025 Alaska summit between US and Russian leaders.
What is at stake in the corridors of European capitals is whether diplomacy on the side can produce anything durable while deep strikes continue. For now, the newsletter’s contribution is to name the week’s themes rather than to resolve them.
What to watch next is whether the diplomatic push acquires concrete terms, participants and a venue — details the current round-up does not supply — and whether the deep-strike campaign continues at its present intensity in the meantime.
