UPDATE: More Good News In Ukraine's Fight For Democracy
The audacious attack inside Russia + other positive developments
If you missed it over the weekend, Ukraine had a major, major offensive victory against Russia.
In a strike more than a year in the planning, they hit Russian airfields across the the breadth of the country with killer drones — disabling or destroying more than 40 Russian planes — some of them the newest and most expensive bombers. That’s estimated to be 30% of Russia’s entire air force.
They did it by smuggling in the drones over time (with the help of Russian citizens) and launching them from homes across the country. It was an amazing combination of strategy, secrecy, and pure guts.
On the ground, Russian advances have all been thwarted. Yes, they have the capability to inflict death on civilians from the air, but the front lines are turning into WWI dead zones and Russia just keeps throwing bodies into the wood chipper.
When Trump came back I was more scared about the fate of Ukraine than any other foreign policy issue. But, the cards are thankfully aligning here. Regardless of his utter capitulation to Russia, Trump is being so bigly humiliated by Putin that his magic peace is turning into the new 2.0 Infrastructure Week.
That’s honestly the best case scenario. Europe is filling the void, giving the green light for operations inside Russia, and Ukraine is beating Goliath by any standards. Yes, the doomsday scenario — Russian tactical nukes‚ is still there, but when do Putin allies start falling out of windows?
Slava Ukrain!
More Good News The Free World Deserves
Beyond the strikes, Ukraine gets woeful coverage in American mainstream media. Here are some other recent developments, published by The Guardian with thoughts on each:
British defense secretary John Healey on Wednesday said Britain would increase tenfold the number of drones it would deliver to Ukraine, aiming for 100,000 drones. Speaking ahead of a meeting by Nato defense ministers, Healey added that Russia could sustain its current rate of fire in Ukraine through the end of the year.
There’s more to this story converging into another best-case win for Ukraine in their critical need for drones — and other arms. For starters, Ukraine has dramatically increased their manufacturing capacity of drones. I believe all those used in the Russian strike were made in Ukraine. I haven’t done the research to understand how they are successfully keeping those plants away from Russian air strikes, but that’s the first good on this front.
While Trump (and Hegseth) have talked lots of shit about stopping the US supply of weapons, I’ve read that the process is slow. And on purpose. I’ve heard that both within the DOD and external companies like Boeing they are trying muck up any halt in arms that are already in the pipeline especially.
So, Europeans stepping up (not just with drones) combined with Ukrainian output both leveling up as the American supply slows down is very good news indeed. There was a lot of speculation that Ukraine would be left defenseless under Trump, but that looks to be minimal.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz will tell US president Donald Trump on his upcoming visit that Europe is firmly on Ukraine’s side in its war with Russia and that no chance for peace must be passed up, Germany’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. “Europe expects us, the United States and Europe, to bring Russia to the negotiating table. This opportunity for peace must not be missed. And this war must finally be brought to a just end,” Johann Wadephul said at a news conference with his Polish counterpart.
Trump’s election seems to have lit a proverbial fire under the ass of Europe as a whole. Not that they were complacent before, but on both the diplomatic and all military fronts they are stepping up to fill the void.
Russia should not fall for Ukraine’s criminal provocations, and should use negotiations and all means to achieve the goals of the military operation in Ukraine, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. After Lavrov’s remarks, President Vladimir Putin said: “I agree with this.”
I’m not holding much stock in this. My guess is that Russia will attempt the most massive retaliation they can muster. So this might be a opossum playing dead kind of thing. But, this strike, their lack of on-the-ground victories and whatever may be playing out inside the Kremlin might actually be pushing them for real negotiations that don’t involve Ukraine giving up all the territory they lost in the initial Russian invasion.
We’ll see. But, this kind of talk from Putin doesn’t sound like someone playing with a good hand of cards, as Donny would say. How poetic would that be!?
Speaking of cards, the wild card in all this is Trump. Like I said there’s always the underlying acquiescence to Putin. But when he came back into power I seriously thought there was a chance that we would be actively helping the Russians.
Him being so utterly humiliated by Putin to stop the war on his first day — or ever since handing over everything to Putin — may have him ultimately just walking away and blaming everyone else as he does with everything.
That and all these other positive developments are the best of all worlds for Ukraine.