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.

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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.