The Latest Escalation Between Russia and Ukraine Isn't Changing the Course of the War
The empire strikes back. Last week, Ukrainian spies destroyed a large chunk of Russia's fearsome nuclear bomber fleet using small, smuggled drones. On Friday, Russia retaliated with some of the largest air raids against Ukraine to date.
The Russian air raids killed eight Ukrainians and wounded 46. They also sent the message that, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, the current round of peace talks is over. On the whole, however, neither the Ukrainian guerrilla operation nor the old-fashioned Russian retaliation changed the course of the war.
Russia has a slight, but not decisive, advantage. Russian forces have been gaining ground in Ukraine at a slow rate and high cost. Although they have continued to suffer from manpower shortages, Ukrainian forces have managed to inflict greater losses on the Russian side. The human butchery on the front lines can continue for the time being.
Of course, the attack on the Russian nuclear bomber fleet matters a lot for the global balance of power. And Ukraine has grown quite bold at attacking Russian interests outside of Ukraine.
Ukrainian operatives have reportedly blown up the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea, captured Russian mercenaries in Sudan, enabled Tuareg rebels to kill dozens more Russian mercenaries in Mali, and trained Syrian rebels to use drones against the former government of Bashar Assad, a Russian ally.
Rather than changing the balance of forces on the battlefield, these moves serve two psychological purposes. On one hand, they blunt Putin's confidence that he can simply wait Ukraine out. U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told European leaders last month that Putin doesn't want to end the war because he believes Russia is winning.
On the other hand, Ukrainian operations help demonstrate Ukraine's usefulness to its foreign backers. Even more than having to justify the financial cost of U.S. aid, over $128 billion in total, Ukraine has to compete for scarce physical resources with other theaters of war. (Late last month, the U.S. military decided to move anti-drone proximity fuzes from Ukraine to American forces in the Middle East.) And Trump has made no secret of his belief that Ukraine is a freeloader that doesn't "have the cards."
After the drone attack, Ukrainian spokespeople bragged that they do, in fact, hold "the cards." The Trump administration was reportedly very impressed by the "badass" Ukrainian attack. As one White House adviser told Axios, "you've got a chihuahua inflicting some real damage on a much bigger dog."
Feats of reckless defiance might prove more effective than the half-baked scheme to market Ukraine's non-existent mineral wealth to Trump. Many political figures have misread Trump as someone who enjoys flattery. But he does not necessarily respect those who grovel before him, whether it's domestic politicians or allied heads of state, and he does enjoy winning over adversaries.
Congress is also getting ready to impose new economic sanctions on Russia, something that Trump has threatened to do over the past few months. The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is fighting to "water down" the legislation, but the dispute seems to be more about keeping the president's options open to lifting sanctions than the strength of the pressure.
Unlike in the Middle East, where U.S. enemies are relatively weak and American partners are extremely reliant on U.S. support, the United States does not have an easy "off" switch for the Russian-Ukraine war. Europe provides Ukraine with slightly more aid than the United States.
Although U.S. aid to Ukraine has been massive—and irreplaceable in the areas of air defense and intelligence—Ukraine can fight on for quite a while with European support and its own domestic capabilities.
"Both sides are suffering before you pull them apart, before they're able to be pulled apart," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. "You see in hockey, you see it in sports. The referees let them go for a couple of seconds, let them go for a little while before you pull them apart."
That's a lot of suffering in the meantime. A recent estimate put overall casualties of the war—which includes both wounded and killed—at 1.2 million troops since 2022. And the United Nations has recorded 45,000 civilian casualties in Ukraine throughout the war. Each of those numbers represents a family torn apart forever.
However depressing the situation sounds, the fact that neither side has a clear path to victory means that they will both have to come back to the negotiating table. It's in America's interest for this war to end as quickly as possible, and as other conflicts show, the U.S. can do a lot of good as a distant but powerful mediator.
The post The Latest Escalation Between Russia and Ukraine Isn't Changing the Course of the War appeared first on Reason.com.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
24 minutes ago
- Fox News
Issa floats constitutional amendment to let Congress, SCOTUS remove president after Biden health 'cover-up'
Rep. Darrell Issa on Friday suggested that the House should consider taking up a constitutional amendment to make it easier to remove a president who is unable to perform the job in response to the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden's declining mental state. Issa, R-Calif., who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that actions taken by Biden administration officials to keep Americans in the dark about his health show that the provisions in the 25th Amendment may be insufficient. That amendment allows the Vice President and the Cabinet to remove a president from his role if he is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." "The initiation was always intended to be the vice president and the cabinet based on the assumption that they would take their oath and their observation seriously and that they were closest to the president to know if that event was needed," Issa told Fox News. "It now looks as though their impartiality can be questioned." Issa added: "If that's the case, the other two branches need to be brought in in some way into the process of asserting that the president may be unable to perform his duties and determining that in a fair and, if necessary, public way." The other two branches in this case would likely be Congress and the Supreme Court. Issa's comments come as the House Oversight Committee is set to interview three Biden administration officials next week about the former president's decline. Former Domestic Policy Council Director Neera Tanden will meet with the committee Tuesday. Former Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the First Lady Anthony Bernthal will meet with the committee Thursday. Former White House Physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor will testify under subpoena on Friday. The committee also has interviews scheduled with former administration officials Annie Tomasini and Ashley Williams. And it's seeking interviews with several officials in the Biden inner circle, including former Chief of Staff Ron Klain and former Senior Advisor to the President for Communications Anita Dunn. Also among the questions investigators will have is whether any Biden officials used the autopen to authorize executive actions without the president's permission. The results of that investigation, according to Issa, could help inform exactly how to write this potential constitutional amendment. "What Chairman Comer is doing is extremely important because he's basically doing the fact-finding for the Judiciary Committee, which is going to undoubtedly take up a possible amendment to the 25th Amendment," Issa said. There is a very high threshold to amend the Constitution – a two-thirds vote in each chamber and ratification by three-quarters of states. So, if an amendment does materialize from the Judiciary Committee, it would face a tough road to make it through Congress, even with unified Republican control. But Issa says it's worth making an effort to improve the system. "Since it didn't work, we have to ask, is there another way to make it work better in the future?" he asked.
Politico
27 minutes ago
- Politico
Israel presses ahead with strikes as Trump's 2-week deadline looms
Israeli officials insisted Friday that they will keep up their bombing campaign against Iran, even as President Donald Trump has given Tehran a two-week deadline to come to some sort of diplomatic deal that reins in its nuclear program. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, laid out his country's case at the U.N. Security Council, facing off Friday with Iranian representatives who urged the world to stop the Israeli strikes. 'Israel will not stop. Not until Iran's nuclear threat is dismantled, not until its war machine is disarmed, not until our people and yours are safe,' Danon declared. The Israeli assertions highlight how Trump's statement that he'll decide 'in the next two weeks' whether to strike Iranian nuclear sites provides an opportunity to Israel as much as it puts pressure on Iran. For Iran, it's two weeks to come to some sort of diplomatic deal with the U.S. that constrains its nuclear, and possibly other, programs. For Israel, it's a focused timeframe to do as much damage as it can to Iran's nuclear and broader military infrastructure before the U.S. may pressure it to accept a diplomatic solution. The more damage Israel does, the more it could weaken an enemy and improve the odds that Iran will capitulate to U.S. demands in the diplomatic process. The strikes themselves couldthreaten the survival of Iran's Islamist regime. Trump told reporters on Friday that he wasn't about to push Israel to halt its assault in Iran while he weighs what the U.S. should do. 'It's very hard to make that request right now,' Trump said. 'If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we're ready, willing and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens.' A senior administration official, granted anonymity to speak about the president's thinking, said 'everything is still on the table.' 'This is about giving this a little time and seeing if things look any different in a couple weeks,' the official said. Trump's 'two-week' window was delivered Thursday by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said, quoting Trump, that his delay in determining whether to join Israel's attack on Iran was 'based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.' Trump often says he'll make decisions in two weeks, only to extend his deadline again or never follow through. Still, Israel and Iran appear to believe the next two weeks will be a crucial phase. Iranian officials showed up for nuclear talks with European officials on Friday in Geneva; Israel pressed ahead with its bombing campaign against Iran, which is responding with missiles. Iranian officials met Friday with European envoys in Geneva in an attempt to revitalize the diplomatic process. The talks ended on an ambiguous note. Iranian officials have said their participation in future talks would hinge on Israel stopping its attacks. Some European representatives said talks should continue regardless, even as they urged both sides to avoid escalation. 'We invited the Iranian minister to consider negotiations with all sides, including the United States, without awaiting the cessation of strikes, which we also hope for,' French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said. For Israel, the most critical, but perhaps toughest, official objective is eliminating Iran's nuclear facility at Fordo. That facility is buried deep underground, and Israel has been hoping Trump will enter the fight and use special, massive U.S. bombs to destroy it. There are concerns, however, including among Republicans, that Iran could retaliate against U.S. assets if America enters the conflict on any level, dragging America into another Middle Eastern war. Trump campaigned on avoiding such wars. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted that Israel has means to destroy Fordo on its own. It's not clear what those methods could involve, but Israel has significant intelligence operations inside Iran and it has often surprised even Washington with its capabilities. Either way, current and former Israeli officials said they saw no reason for Israel to back off its strikes now, despite calls for deescalation from some world capitals. The more Israel degrades Iran's capabilities, the less able Tehran will be to mount retaliatory attacks on Israel or the United States, should the latter choose to enter the war. From the beginning, 'the Israeli planning was based on the assumption that we have to do it alone,' said a former Israeli diplomat familiar with the situation. The person, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss highly sensitive issues. It's unclear whether there is any deal with Iran that Israel would deem strong enough. There is tremendous distrust of Iran's Islamist regime within Israel's security establishment, leading to a sense that Iran would cheat on any deal. Another unsettled question is whether a deal with Iran will cover only its nuclear program or also curb its ballistic missile initiative and support for proxy militias in the region. Some analysts have argued that Netanyahu decided to begin attacking Iran last week because he was worried earlier nuclear talks between Iran and the Trump administration would yield too weak a deal. If new efforts at diplomacy yield fruit, Trump could pressure Netanyahu to accept whatever deal emerges, potentially even by threatening to withhold weapons and other equipment Israel needs to defend itself against Iran. The war is costly for Israel, which has been fighting on multiple fronts — in particular against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip — since October 2023. As one Israeli official said, Iranian missile attacks feel like 'Russian roulette' to Israeli citizens.
Associated Press
28 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Trump says Gabbard was 'wrong' about Iran and Israeli strikes could be 'very hard to stop'
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was 'wrong' when she previously said that the U.S. believed Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon, and he suggested that it would be 'very hard to stop' Israel's strikes on Iran in order to negotiate a possible ceasefire. Trump has recently taken a more aggressive public stance toward Tehran as he's sought more time to weigh whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility. Buried under a mountain, the facility is believed to be out of the reach of all but America's 'bunker-buster' bombs. After landing in New Jersey for an evening fundraiser for his super political action committee, Trump was asked about Gabbard's comments to Congress in March that U.S. spy agencies believed that Iran wasn't working on nuclear warheads. The president responded, 'Well then, my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?' Informed that it had been Gabbard, Trump said, 'She's wrong.' In a subsequent post on X, Gabbard said her testimony was taken out of context 'as a way to manufacture division.' 'America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly,' she wrote. 'President Trump has been clear that can't happen, and I agree.' Still, disavowing Gabbard's previous assessment came a day after the White House said Trump would decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military would get directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. It said seeking additional time was 'based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.' But on Friday, Trump himself seemed to cast doubts on the possibility of talks leading to a pause in fighting between Israel and Iran. He said that, while he might support a ceasefire, Israel's strikes on Iran could be 'very hard to stop.' Asked about Iran suggesting that, if the U.S. was serious about furthering negotiations, it could call on Israel to stop its strikes, Trump responded, 'I think it's very hard to make that request right now.' 'If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing,' Trump said. 'But we're ready, willing and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens.' The president later added, 'It's very hard to stop when you look at it.' 'Israel's doing well in terms of war. And, I think, you would say that Iran is doing less well. It's a little bit hard to get somebody to stop,' Trump said. Trump campaigned on decrying 'endless wars' and has vowed to be an international peacemaker. That's led some, even among conservatives, to point to Trump's past criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq beginning in 2003 as being at odds with his more aggressive stance toward Iran now. Trump suggested the two situations were very different, though. 'There were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. And that was somewhat pre-nuclear. You know, it was, it was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today,' Trump said of his past criticism of the administration of President George W. Bush. He added of Iran's current nuclear program, 'It looked like I'm right about the material that they've gathered already. It's a tremendous amount of material.' Trump also cast doubts on Iran's developing nuclear capabilities for civilian pursuits, like power generation. 'You're sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world,' he said. 'It's a little bit hard to see why you'd need that.' ____
