How Ukraine's drone attacks jeopardise peace efforts with Russia

IN a much-anticipated telephone call this week, US President Donald Trump was at pains explaining to his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, that Washington absolutely had nothing to do with Ukraine’s astoundingly provocative drone attacks on five Russian airbases.

The airbases, attacked simultaneously, house Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. The attacks appear to put a spanner in the works for Trump’s strenuous efforts to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. The timing is also curious.

The well-orchestrated drone attacks took place at a time when the light at the end of the tunnel was beginning to beam with brightness. Despite the deep-seated mistrust and tension between the two next-door neighbours who’ve been at war since February 2022, the latest round of rare face-to-face talks between the two nations has taken place in the Turkish capital, Istanbul.

Trump had been visibly encouraged by their direct negotiations, which resulted in the mass exchange of prisoners of war.

A leading German-based civil society organisation, the Schiller Institute, has been vehemently campaigning for an end to the war, actively supporting dialogue in an effort to give peace a chance.

Responding to Ukraine’s provocative attack on Russia on June 1, Dennis Small of the Schiller Institute wrote: “Whether 40% or only 10% of Russia’s airborne nuclear capability was destroyed in the attack is irrelevant; the fact is that whoever prepared, trained and gave the final green light for Kiev’s drone operation was itching to unleash a nuclear-strategic conflict between the world’s two greatest nuclear weapons superpowers.”

Trump told Putin that the White House was not even given any prior warning about the attacks. Therefore, like most of the international community, Washington was caught off guard, totally taken by surprise.

Now, since the outbreak of the war, the US has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine through military hardware, capital injection and international diplomatic offensive that has seen Ukraine’s now acting President Volodymyr Zelensky treated with pomp and ceremony across many capitals, particularly in Europe.

NATO has also been visible and loud in defence of Ukraine, supplying intelligence and weaponry to Kyiv, among others. All this support was provided on the back of the imposition of an unprecedented barrage of economic sanctions on Moscow. As things were, the entire script was written by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, who had vowed that the West would support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”.

When Biden and his Democrats lost the elections last November, Trump’s Republican Party was determined to end the war in Ukraine. “This is a war that would never have started if I were in office,” Trump has said repeatedly.

It is therefore no wonder that since assuming office at the beginning of 2025, Trump has prioritised peace in Ukraine. He came into office at a time of great antagonism and mistrust between Washington and Moscow. In the midst of it all, he managed to re-establish contact with the Kremlin, leading to the accentuation of bilateral diplomacy between the two nuclear powers.

Through it all, some in Europe had not been too pleased about the looming brokering of peace between Ukraine and Russia. Key EU powers in the form of the UK, France and Germany have publicly displayed displeasure at Trump’s approach and efforts.

As Washington was pushing too hard to bring a reluctant Zelensky to the negotiating table, the three European powers stated above were actively mobilising for an “alternative” approach. They birthed a curious idea labelled a “Coalition of the Willing”, a military force to be deployed to Ukraine in the event Trump succeeded with his peace mission.

Their rationale is premised on their deep mistrust of Russia that borders on downright Russophobia. They claim that their mooted indefinite military presence inside Ukraine would deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again. The EU’s biggest powers are trapped in the Joe Biden war-mongering era that has passed.

They speak of no approach to peace, nor how they could engage with Russia at the negotiating table to reach an amicable settlement to the war. Of great interest, the pro-war EU states want Trump’s US to guarantee what they call a back-stop, some military assurance that in an event of confrontation with Russia, whilst “guarding” Ukraine, the US would jump in to defend their Coalition of the Willing.

Of course, Trump has already disappointed most of the war-mongering European powers by expressing no taste for military activities inside Ukraine post-war.

Trump’s offer of a guarantee for the protection of Ukraine will instead come in the form of the economic deal between Kyiv and Washington that includes rare earth minerals. The minerals would contribute toward Ukraine repaying the US for the unconditional assistance Zelensky received during the tenure of Biden, which totalled several billions of dollars.

Ukraine’s audacious drone attacks of recent days beg for more questions. For instance, where does Zelensky get the guts to launch such a sensitive attack on Russia without informing the White House? As the Schiller Institute puts it: “Who has the (usurped) power to launch an attack targeting the nuclear deterrent forces of the planet’s leading nuclear weapons nation, without telling the of the United States?”

Clearly, and surely, an attack of that kind and magnitude would inevitably and logically trigger a response? The Zelensky regime is not politically naive to be unaware of the consequential ramifications of their actions, but then, what is the end-game?

The Schiller Institute’s conclusion is rather ominous. It read: “The world may have dodged the bullet of nuclear war — for the moment. But that gun is still loaded, and it is still being wielded by the British and American intelligence circles that are intent on driving a permanent wedge between Trump and Putin, and who are prepared to stage a coup d’état and even assassinate both heads of state, as well as launch another nuclear provocation.”

I believe that the UK, France and Germany, that is now under the war-mongering Chancellor Friedrich Merz, need to be confronted by Washington to come out clean about their role in ordering or advising Kiev to attack Russia in this manner.

Trump and Putin spoke by phone for one hour and 15 minutes in the aftermath of the attacks. Trump said afterwards: “We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked aeroplanes, by Ukraine,” he posted on his Truth Social account on June 4, adding: “It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.” In my book, that’s the scary part indeed!

Additionally, Trump told Putin that the Americans had “not been advised before the attack by Kyiv”, according to a readout of the call provided by Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov.

Now, the world might have momentarily stepped back from the brink of the outbreak of World War III, a nuclear war, an Apocalypse, the end of us all. The end of humanity as we know it. That is the sum total of the miscalculation of Ukraine’s ill-advised attacks on five Russian airbases that house the country’s strategic bomber fleet deep inside the Russian territory, an operation Kiev could never have been able to carry out without the assistance of the UK, France, Germany and chorus of anti-piece regimes across Europe.

* Makoe is the publisher and editor-in-chief: Global South Media Network (www.gsmn.co.za).

** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.