End of Week

Israel counterattacks but within limits, Ukraine is beginning to slide away

Iran-Israel

There weren’t that many options for Israel following last weekend’s aerial attack from Iran. The was ‘do nothing’, ‘launch a full scale counterattack’ or opt for a measured and targeted attack. And Israel picked the latter, no doubt after close consultation with the US. Consequently only a military target was hit near Isfahan last night and at the same time some drones were taken down near Tabriz. There was some debate as to the source of the attack as some media reported that the drones were fired from Iranian territory, which in turn prompted speculation about Israel’s ability to infiltrate enemy soil. There was no tangible evidence on that as of this writing, but what is clear is that Iran has been given a succinct warning and that is expected to de-escalate things for now.

In the meantime Israel will be gearing up for the important holiday of Passover early next week (not that a religious holidays have ever stopped anyone from attacking, on the contrary) and in Gaza people have been flocking to the beach while aid keeps rolling in with no progress on the release of any of the hostages. As I predicted, this will be a very long conflict with no good news in sight for the foreseeable future.

Russia-Ukraine

The same holds true for Ukraine. We are now over two years into this war and it is more than ever clear that Russia has gained the upper hand in the conflict. It beginning to advance its front line positions where Ukrainian troops are now forced to start rationing their supplies and are thus no longer capable of mounting the defence they need to. The ever waning enthusiasm for more military support needs to be reversed and an important US vote on this is imminent while in Europe this week NATO partners worked hard on the same.

It is worth pointing out that more evidence as well as warnings are coming out about direct Russian interference in European elections as well as increasing Russian intelligence efforts and even sabotage efforts. It is as if all constraints on the Putin regime - to the extent there were any left - have been released and I am getting the distinct impression that the continent is now waking up and getting ready for a long and potentially more violent conflict on multiple fronts with Moscow. No, not a nuclear war although the odds of that may increase in a situation like this. It is more that Russia is exploiting every western weakness where the EU, NATO and US are now catching up, but where most of the real action is confined to Ukraine. At least for now.

Photo: Patriot air missile defence system in action, these are the ones now slated for accelerated delivery to Ukraine by NATO.