Op Spiderweb Fails to 'Trump-Proof' the Ukraine War

—MI6, in particular—was an inflection point in the Ukraine conflict that could disrupt peace talks, compel President Donald Trump to disengage from President Vladimir Putin and derail US-Russia normalization, but in the 11 days that followed, nothing of the sort happened.

- M K BHADRAKUMAR

Diplomacy will continue; Trump remains engaged with Putin, and he shows no enthusiasm for 'Biden's war.' A face-to-face meeting at the Oval Office on June 5 between Trump and visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz could only paper over their differences. Merz later said he told Trump privately that "he is the key person in the world who can really do that [bringing peace]—by putting pressure on Russia". However, Trump was unmoved.

New facts on the ground will keep shaping diplomacy, a phenomenon endemic to major wars (e.g., Korea or Vietnam). Last weekend, a Russian tank division entered Dnipropetrovsk province in the direction of the Dnieper River for the first time in the war, while a northern thrust is rapidly advancing toward the strategic city of Sumy, which is now only 25 km from the frontline—and 200 km from Kiev.

Ukraine and its Western supporters, sensing the imbalance vis-a-vis Russian weaponry and firepower, vulnerability to large-scale Russian missile attacks, and acute shortage of trained fighters, face the spectre of a World War I implosion sooner or later. This grim scenario breeds desperate acts of asymmetrical war. In the estimation of The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who is wired into the US security establishment, "Ukraine will depend more than ever on its intelligence services... covert operations could expand into a 'dirty war' beyond the front, with more targeted killings, sabotage, and strikes... Operation Spiderweb was a bold Ukrainian attempt to reset the table... Other sophisticated operations are in the works, intelligence sources tell me."