Ukraine sought to make a strong statement before sitting down to talk with the United States in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by launching more than 300 drones at Moscow.
Moscow claimed that it was the largest attack by Ukraine in the war. Flights were canceled, and train travel was suspended because of the massive drone assault.
What statement was Ukraine trying to make, that it's still alive and kicking or that it's trying to show Donald Trump that it's capable of offensive operations?
It hardly matters. A drone strike or two on Moscow won't alter the trajectory of the war in the slightest. Ukraine is losing the war in the bloody meat grinder of the Donbas. It's losing slowly, but it's losing nonetheless. It has lost two-thirds of the territory in Russia that it gained with its surprise attack last summer. The sooner Ukraine gets serious about ending the war, the more territory it'll be able to keep.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it bluntly on the plane as he was flying to Jeddah.
“The most important thing that we have to leave here with is a strong sense that Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things, like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things to end this conflict or at least pause it in some way, shape or form,” Rubio told reporters.
“I think both sides need to come to an understanding that there’s no military solution to this situation,” Rubio said. “The Russians can’t conquer all of Ukraine, and obviously it’ll be very difficult for Ukraine in any reasonable time period to sort of force the Russians back all the way to where they were in 2014.”
Kyiv has long maintained that the only way to force Russia to accept an enduring peace deal is through force and by raising the cost of the war for the Kremlin. The timing of the overnight attack on Moscow was meant to drive home that message, Andriy Kovalenko, a senior Ukrainian official focused on Russian disinformation operations, said in a statement.
Russia has also continued its relentless bombardment of Ukrainian civilian and military institutions, regularly launching more than 100 drones each night.
On Tuesday morning, Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russia had launched 126 drones and one ballistic missile overnight. At least one person was killed when a Russian drone struck a warehouse in Kharkiv and at least 17 others were injured in attacks elsewhere in the country, the Ukrainian authorities said.
Ukraine, backed by France and other EU powers, wants to pause the air war. Kyiv says it'll stop long-range missile attacks if Russia does the same. It is expected to make that proposal in Jeddah.
It's an extremely small gesture that isn't likely to slow the bloodshed where more than a million soldiers on both sides have died.
Russia has launched more than 1,550 drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and 80 missiles into Ukraine just since Zelensky's disastrous Oval Office Meeting with Trump. The cutoff of arms and, more importantly, some intelligence sharing have crippled Ukraine's military.
But the U.S. hasn't stopped the flow of intelligence completely. And Trump has threatened Moscow with additional sanctions if it fails to come to the negotiating table.
Although the United States has stopped sharing some intelligence with Ukraine, including satellite imagery, Mr. Rubio said it was still providing Kyiv with information that allowed it to continue defending itself against Russian attacks. He also said that there had never been a threat of removing Ukraine’s access to Starlink, the internet service company owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Even as the United States has been pressuring Ukraine in recent weeks, Mr. Trump has also threatened to impose additional sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s continued military activity. Mr. Rubio said that the United States was trying to demonstrate that it still had ways to coerce Russia in an effort to bring it to the negotiating table with Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin is feigning disinterest in a cease-fire. In truth, Putin needs one almost as bad as Ukraine. Russia's frontline troops are as exhausted as Kyiv's, and morale is close to rock bottom.
“Ukraine wants peace more than anyone — we have been seeking it since the very first moment of this war,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “So why does it continue? Because Russia doesn’t stop its attacks.”
There will be a point where a combination of exhaustion and self-interest will create the conditions for serious peace talks. Until then, the conflict will continue, as will the bloodshed.
