Ukraine Teaching Russia Defense Techniques

"The same ultimatums they voiced back then -- now they just put them on paper."

"Honestly, this document looks like spam. It's spam meant to flood us and create the impression that they're doing something."

"[The 2025 talks in Istanbul carry] the same content and spirit [as the fruitless negotiations  held in the Turkish city in the early days of the war]."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Operation Spiderweb, Ukrainian Secret Service

 

To achieve 'peace' Vladimir Putin recommends a few little concessions from Ukraine that would do the trick. To begin with, the provinces that the Russian military managed to wrest from its Ukrainian defenders which Moscow swiftly declared to be part of the Russian Federation through the usual Russian penchant for expropriating Ukrainian geography, must be formally ceded by Kyiv to Moscow. Ukraine must put down its arms, return to what Russia for now allow it to consider sovereign, and agree to put a stop to its attempts to join NATO.

 

Ukraine must no longer demand reparations from Russia over the gross ruination of Ukraine's infrastructure, its destroyed towns and cities, realizing them to be unreasonable. Along the 1,000-kilometre front line, Ukraine must disassemble its protective blockades as it decamps. Ukraine must swiftly call a general election to put a new government in place. One that will be more amenable to the concerns of its neighbour. That's all, just a few simple recommendations if Ukraine wants peace.

 

And while President Zelenskyy dismissed Russia's ceasefire proposal as "an ultimatum", he is open to a frank, direct, person-to-person meeting with Vladimir Putin. A suggestion that has outraged the Russian president, as he raged over Ukraine's recent "terrorist acts" on Russian soil in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on the countries' border.

 

"How can any such [summit] meetings be conducted in such circumstances? What shall we talk about?" He went on to accuse Ukraine of seeking a truce in bad faith. To use such a hiatus in the 3-1/2-year conflict as an opportunity to replenish its western arms stockpiles, recruit additional servicemen, while preparing new attacks just like those carried out in Kursk and Bryansk. Ukraine's determination to defend itself from the vicious territorial predation that caused the Kremlin to plan a full-scale invasion in reaction to 'neo-Nazi' occupation of Kyiv's government, evidently represents an intolerable insult to Russia. 

 

Both Russia and Ukraine have their established red lines, beyond the U.S.-led international diplomatic enterprise to put a stop to the conflict. Both Kyiv and its allies in the West view the Kremlin's Istanbul proposal's demands as absurd non-starters. Continuing such talks have little value at the current level of delegations, in Mr. Zelenskyy's considered opinion. 

 

While Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov led the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, a mere aide to Putin, headed the Russian negotiating team. As the talks took place, both sides have maintained offensive military actions along the front line, each carrying out deep strikes. Putin views Russia's strikes as legitimate moves of war, and Ukraine's successful attacks deep within Russian territory as illegitimate 'terrorism'. 

Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb. (Nizar al-Rifai/The Kyiv Independent)

 

The spectacular weekend drone strike carried out last weekend by Ukraine's Security Service which destroyed or damaged 41 Russian aircraft including strategic bombers, a case in point. Stunning Russia with the bold ingenuity of the Ukrainian team, able to plan and conduct a operation of that ambitious level without Russian defensive scrutiny to detect the incursion; failing entirely in its critical security and intelligence capabilities.

 

Seven destroyed bombers were shown by Satellite photos on the tarmac of a Russian airbase in eastern Siberia, one of the Ukrainian Secret Service targets struck, representing one of the moseet impressive covert operations of the war. Photos by Planet Labs PBC showed aircraft wreckage and scorched areas at the Belaya Air Base, a major installation for the Russian long-range bomber force. Three Tu-95 bombers and four Tu-22Ms were destroyed, according to the photos.

 

And then, mere days later the Ukrainian Secret Service struck again, this time setting off an undersea explosion beneath the Kerch Bridge the transport link between Russia and the annexed Crimea, to disrupt vital Russian supplies reaching the front lines.  

A map showing Russian control over Crimea and Ukrainian land on the Black Sea coast. (Nizar al-Rifai/The Kyiv Independent)