AA Edit | No End to War Likely in Ukraine, Gaza

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin agreed to pause strikes on Ukrainian energy targets for 30 days.

This may have been construed as a prelude to peace but his reluctance to even accept a 30-day full ceasefire in Ukraine, or even observe the partial ceasefire, means the war is here to stay. And just the day prior to the hyperbole over the Trump-Putin phone call peaking, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a massive bombing spree over Gaza, breaking a two-month ceasefire.

It is back to square one then on the two wars that have tested global peace the most in the last three years since the Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022, and the Israeli counter-strikes on Hamas actions of October 7, 2023, converted Eurasia into a major battle zone. There is no end in sight as Putin will clearly not negotiate further until his big push into Ukraine with more than six lakh troops brings in the territorial gains that he has set his eyes on.

As the hapless pawn in this battle of super powers, Ukraine can expect not only to lose most of the 65,000 square miles of territory that Russia is occupying currently, including Crimea, but also the sliver of Russian land in the Kursk region of Russia which is all that is left as a bargaining chip for Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Putin’s forces began its most recent offensive in which it regained land and also targeted those Ukrainian armoured vehicles that were on the retreat.

The eternal optimist US President Donald Trump may be blowing the trumpet over the movement for peace having begun with the agreed ceasing of fire on energy and infrastructure on both sides of the conflict as Ukraine had also been flying drones into Russia’s oil and gas installations that are the financial key to Putin’s war effort as most of the revenue flows from energy sales.

Truth to tell, this does not sound promising at all. There is no making sense of continued Russian attacks at night that included a hit on a power plants in eastern Ukraine and a hospital after the 90- minute phone call had ended and word had gone out to the Russian army on the partial ceasefire.

Since Moscow has already emphasised that a fuller truce would depend on long-standing demands for a total cessation of Western military and intelligence to Ukraine’s army and that Ukrainian troops should not rearm or mobilise, the ceasefire is a total sham.

Preceding this failure of the Trump conversation with Putin was Netanyahu’s decision to resume the bombing of Gaza aimed at Hamas targets. The far-right Otzma Yehudit party that had left his coalition is back along with its leader and former minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. This carries more than a hint that the Israeli PM has done this only to prolong his rule that could end if the hostilities stop.

A fragile 60 days of truce with exchange of prisoners for hostages, alive or dead, was better than the pounding and killing of Palestinians, with the toll now nearing 50,000. But Israel’s latest actions, which are to do with denying Hamas the right to retain control of the Gaza Strip and play its role in administering it, mean that the aerial war has resumed, and a ground invasion is probably coming.

The war hawks are having their way even as ceasefire agreements are being shredded.