Defense expert Ko Colijn has been providing the Dutch with insights into armed conflicts for fifty years. This time, he discusses how both Russia and Ukraine are now truly ripe for a ceasefire. But neither party wants to be the first to give in.
It has been described before: Ukraine and Russia are in fact ripe for a ceasefire. Russia is barely gaining ground, but is hurting Ukraine with rockets and drones. It ignores US President Donald Trump, but can hardly benefit from the Western chaos. On the contrary, European countries seem willing to fill the gap that Trump leaves, somewhat with money.
Small countries like the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway are scraping together money so that Ukraine can have necessary air defense and drones. The United Kingdom is also making its presence felt in this area and Germany will supply two Patriot systems to Kyiv. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has told Trump that the US must ‘return’ those systems within a few months, to fill a threatening German shortage.
The US will also supply some Patriots. Not that ten pieces will eliminate all Ukrainian need (according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, at least 25 are needed). But you could argue that Trump’s inability to quickly end the war will be partly offset by aid. This can make the Russian rocket rains on Ukrainian cities and even maternity clinics a little less painful.
Russia Fears What Ukraine Achieves with Few Resources
Ukraine has meanwhile proven that it can hit any place in Russia with ingenuity and courage. In contrast to the Russians, Ukraine avoids places where many civilians are. In any case, the Ukrainian salvoes are much less numerous and ruthless than the Russian rocket attacks.
Those Russian rocket attacks are the price Ukraine pays for every ‘success’. But it also means that the Russians are concerned about Ukrainian attacks. Russia will not want to admit it, but it fears the lightning attacks, liquidations of top figures, the long range and other military feats of Ukraine.
The Russian air defense has a hard time with it. At the end of last year, Russian soldiers accidentally shot down a civilian aircraft from Azerbaijan over Kazakhstan, resulting in 38 deaths. The actual target were Ukrainian drones that had targeted the airport of Grozny. It led to difficult apologies from Moscow, but also to distrust and quarrels between neighboring countries. Let Ukraine just have made the stirring up of such quarrels into a tactic.
Increasingly, pro-Ukrainian hackers are shutting down Russian state-owned companies. There are also the drone attacks deep inside Russia. Especially the Russian airports are suffering a lot from this, but also the railways. As a result, the ordinary Russian is also starting to feel the war directly.
Trump Exerts Pressure on Russia
The goal of these harassments is to convince Russia that further fighting is not an option. Ukraine has definitively found a way to hurt Russia itself. Perhaps Trump understands this too and the unpredictable president is therefore trying to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
The first deadline would expire sometime in early September. That was shortened to a little less than two weeks, or no later than August 9. On the way back from his golf course in Scotland, Trump even took a day off and set the ultimatum on August 8.
Perhaps Trump is in a kind of victory mood now that he has easily gotten NATO (in the 5 percent discussion) and the EU (in the trade deal) on their knees. Europe already buys two-thirds of its weapons from the American industry. It will add another scoop by paying for American weapons for Ukraine and probably also further replenishing its own stocks.