Ukraine has proved it doesn't need Trump

Yahoo

2 days ago

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Ukraine holds 'no cards in this war'.
Well, they just played one hell of a hand.
On Sunday, a clandestine drone operation hit as many as five different airfields deep inside Russian territory, striking at least eight and possibly dozens of Soviet-era nuclear-capable heavy bombers, which are today impossible to remanufacture.
And the way Ukraine did so is worthy of a Robert Ludlam thriller.
Its domestic security service smuggled in 150 First Person View (FPV) drones in concealed compartments on the top of multiple shipping containers, undetected by Russia's own sprawling counterintelligence organs, which were then loaded on the backs of articulated lorries and driven to within striking distance of their targets.
At the push of a button, the tops of the containers popped off, allowing a swarm of lethal unmanned aerial vehicles to ascend which then struck their unsuspecting targets; lines of Russian bombers fully fueled and awaiting takeoff.
The timing of this kinetic covert operation could not have been better from the Ukrainian perspective.
Peace negotiations begin again in Istanbul with the Russians on Monday, even as Moscow continues to make clear it isn't interested in a 30-day ceasefire.
Trump is said to be exasperated that a suddenly 'crazy' Putin won't end the war as a 'personal favour' to him and is growing weary of engaging in pointless diplomacy.
But the US president has also made no statements about future security assistance to Ukraine, which badly needs three things only the US military-industrial complex can provide at scale: ballistic missile defence, GMLRS rocket artillery and howitzer ammunition.
So Ukraine, it seems, is imposing its own bespoke penalties on Russia, hitting its adversary on supposedly impregnable ground and eliminating a good percentage of its irreplaceable bomber fleet.
CBS News and Axios have reported that Kyiv did not inform the Trump administration of its plans, which took 18 months to pull together.
This means that when Zelensky sat through that Two Minutes of Hate session delivered jointly by Trump and JD Vance in the Oval Office last February, he had this secret caper bouncing about in the back of his head.
It's worth re-watching that confrontation in light of what just happened.
Now, Ukraine has a much needed morale boost at a time when the war has ground down into one of attrition and Russia has launched its now annual summer offensive, which is making costly but consistent progress in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.
Ukraine's capacity to bring the war home to Russia in such a bold fashion is also likely to encourage pro-Ukrainian Republicans who are growing anxious and impatient with Trump's dithering.
Lindsay Graham, the Trump-whisperer senator from South Carolina who has drawn up a range of sanctions against Russia for Mr Trump to sign off, said: 'The ever-resourceful Ukraine used creative drone warfare tactics to successfully attack Russian bombers and military assets used to kill Ukrainian citizens and destroy their country.'
This operation has demonstrated that Ukraine is very much still in the fight, whatever dour statements emerge from the White House.
Mr Trump, easily distracted and unfocused on his best days, has told big and small lies about the war since the beginning of his second term, all damaging to the reality and perception that Ukraine is holding its own.
He has said, for instance, that 'thousands of Ukrainian troops were surrounded' in Kursk when they were not, and claimed that Russia would have taken Kyiv in 'five hours' had Russian tanks not got 'stuck in the mud'.
Ukraine's drone escapades have embarrassed Mr Trump, as well as Mr Putin, it seems.
Ukraine's home-grown munitions are not only changing the nature of this war, but the nature of all future wars fought in the 21st century.
A nation regarded for its IT and engineering sectors has adapted ingeniously to being outgunned and outmanned by an invading army.
A few hundred thousand dollars worth of FPV drones have just eliminated approximately $7 billion of Russian kit, according to the SBU.
No shambolic mineral or rare earths deals had to be struck for that to happen.
Ukraine is mass producing its own variegated fleet of drones at scale using both its own coffers and money from seventeen Western countries – the UK among them – part of a 'drone coalition.'
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, is said to be mulling replacing the presidential daily briefings with video segments similar to those of Fox News, in a desperate effort to get the commander-in-chief to follow along with his own nationals security prerogatives.
Russian nuclear bombers burning on the tarmac is surely one way to get even his attention.