Peace Prospects Dying for Ukraine, Gaza, Israel and Iran

The Battlefields

In recent days there has been a resurgence of Ukrainian offensive actions, particularly in the northern regions of Sumy and Kharkiv, all amidst regular Russian missile and drone attacks across Ukraine but notably in the Kharkiv area (where Russia last night hit a UAF headquarters) and Kiev area (where Russia hit an arms depot).

The involvement of Ukraine’s special forces, accountable to intelligence chief Budanov, both in the Ukrainian attacks from Sumy earlier today (August 6) into the territory of Kursk in the Russian Federation and in an attempted attack on the remote Tendra Spit, west of the Kinburn peninsula south of the Dnieper estuary, is interpreted by Dima of the Military Summary Channel as essentially PR, intended - along with a lot of brouhaha about F16s - to raise morale, and also to distract Russia by obliging it to redeploy forces from the Vovchansk area and to distract Russian forces from a planned Ukrainian initiative elsewhere, perhaps in Zapporizhzhia area (possibly involving Robotyne, yet again).

The Tundra Spit operation was definitely repelled, involving 12 boats altogether that crossed the Black Sea from Odessa, of which the first three were destroyed and the others sent scuttling home. The situation in Sumy is more complex but it looks at this moment in time as though most if not all Ukrainian attacks have been repelled.

The attack by Ukrainian special forces in Sumy appears to have centered on the Russian settlements of Sudzna, and nearby Martynovka, and Kurilovka in the Sudzhansky and Kosenevsky districts. The assaults began in or around the Ukrainian settlements of Novomykolaivka, Yunakiva and Sadky.

In response, there has been considerable Russian activity in Sumy: with Russian bombing of UAF positions in Myropilia; Su-25 fighter attacks between Zhuravka and Sverdikovo; the destruction by Russian Lancets of two Ukrainian air defense systems near Sinne; Russian bombing of a Ukrainian column north of Zhuravka. In other operations Ukrainian forces headed towards the Russian settlements of Nikolayevo-Dsryino, and Oleshnya. Russia hit a column of Ukrainian Strikers close to Nizhniy Klin. All told, Russia hit positions in Basovka, Zhuravka, Khoten, Yurakovka, Belovody, Khrapovschchina, taking out 16 units of Ukrainian armored vehicles.

The first F-16s are flying over Ukraine. But Russia seems unconcerned, saying that these are old machines (almost certainly true), with insufficient numbers of pilots to fly them, and insufficient training of those who are flying them. There is more Russian concern over stated Ukrainian plans to place these in Romania and have them fly into Ukraine for refuelling which, in the event that Russia felt obliged to hit the F-16s on Romanian bases might well lead Romania to invoke Article 5 of NATO’s Washington Treaty.

Dima is of the opinion that the latest Ukrainian excursion into Russia from Sumy and other such offensive actions would appear to signal Ukraine’s determination to keep fighting, and the end of any real progress towards a peace deal. If so, this would certainly support the view of those who consider that the real goal of the collective West is to keep the battle going, exhaust Russia or undermine the credibility of Putin, so that a pro-Western regime can somehow be manouvered into position prior to a gradual fragmentation of the Russian Federation.

All this is delusional, I would argue, on the grounds that Ukraine is losing on the battlefields, Russia is fighting an attritional war that is attriting both Ukraine and the West, Ukraine will collapse long before Russia shows any such signs of doing so, the US and collective West shows an extraordinary lack of leadership and wisdom amidst a rudderless US ship of State, Russia has an offensive weapons capability that looks like is superior to that of the collective West, especially when combined with the forces of China and other members, or aspirational members of the BRICS.

If Budanov's overall interest is in securing PR victories and favorable headlines in the Western media, the battery of recent Ukrainian activities appears to have had limited success: the F-16s will likely prove of limited benefit; the Sumy attacks have been quickly repelled, it seems, without the need for significant Russian deployment from the northern Kharkiv area; and the attack on the Tundra Spit is yet another Ukrainian Dnieper debacle and waste of lives. The use of special forces in place of regular UAF forces may also signal lack of Ukrainian confidence in a regular army that it is trying to mobilize at a rate of 30,000 a month, but which is losing up to 60,000 dead and wounded a month (according to the Russian MoD), and whose new recruits are given only a week of training before being sent to the battlefield.

Additionally, some form of assassination plot against Putin and his defense minister Belousov was foiled, if only by a phone call a week or so ago between Belousov and US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. Russian intelligence alleges that they uncovered a covert assassination timed for the Navy Day parade in Saint Petersburg. Putin's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, suggested such an attack could have led to an "uncontrollable conflict.”

Elsewhere on the battlefields, latest reports center on Russia’s taking of Tymoliivka, Russian penetration of Zhelanne from Lozuvatske towards Kharlivka and Pokrovsk, and its movement towards Lysychne, Russia’s battle for Kostianynivka and the supply roads to Vuhledar, Ukraine’s catastrophic losses in the Toretsk region (Druzhba, Pivinchne, Zalizne), the taking of the Severnaya Mine, and Russia’s 70% control of Niu-York.

Middle East War

Alastair Crooke’s prediction of an intensifying struggle and possible civil war between the settler “State of Judea” and the “State of Israel,” seems to be partly confirmed today by reports of a serious altercation between Netanyahu and his senior intelligence and military officials in which Netanyahu in effect called them cowards, unwilling to finish off Hamas in Gaza and debunking their continuing concern to prioritize the rescue of the one hundred or so October 7th hostages still alive.

Even as the world awaits for an Iranian retaliation on Israel, Iran has been playing a cautious, diplomatic and military game, with Russian Security Council chief, Shoigu, in Tehran; the deployment of Russian weapons to Iran; attempts by Iran to secure the engagement and support of the Organization of Islamic States; Iranian President Pekeshkian’s appointment, as his “strategic deputy,” and head of the Center for Strategic Studies, pf the respected former Iranian foreign minister, Mohammed Javed Zarif; evidence of continuing good relations, originally brokered by China, between Saudi Arabia and Iran. There is some concern about relations with Armenia (to whom Iran has recently sold arms) and Azerbaijan (with which Russia has been building relations following the collapse of a long-established bond between Russia and Armenia). The helicopter crash that killed former Iranian President Raisi occurred just after Raisi had been visiting Azerbaijan.

In the waiting period for what much of the world believes must be an Iranian response to Israel’s recent assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran, some Israeli sources are clamoring for an Israeli preemptive attack. The closing of air space to both Israel and to Iran by Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia allows Iran still to fire into Israel from Syria, Iraq or Lebanon. Threats by the Biden administration to retaliate for recent hits on US bases, said to have injured 12 US soldiers, by Shia Iraqi militia may also play into current manouvers.