US climbs escalation ladder in Ukraine

Building hit by 6 US-made HIMARS missiles on New Year Day killing at least 89 Russian conscripts, Makeyevka, Ukraine  In all probability, the message conveyed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov from his American counterpart Antony Blinken via Israel’s new foreign minister Eli Cohen concerned the Ukrainian missile attack on Makeyevka (Donetsk) on New Year …

A Biden-Putin meeting in Bali cannot be ruled out

The US President Joe Biden said in a CNN interview recently that Russian President Vladimir Putin  is a “rational actor who has miscalculated significantly” on Ukraine issue. The Russian-American summit meetings have a history of calibrated foreplay. As the G20 summit in Bali on November 15-16 draws closer, the big question is still hanging in the …

Who’s afraid of US troops in Ukraine?

Very innocuously, the Biden Administration has ‘sensitised’ the world opinion that American troops are indeed present on Ukrainian soil in Russia’s immediate neighbourhood. Washington made a “soft landing” with an unnamed senior Pentagon official making the disclosure to the Associated Press and the Washington Post.  The official gave an ingenious explanation that the US troops …

Ukraine war of attrition at inflection point

Two Russian soldiers patrolling in Kherson, south Ukraine The great beauty about the war of attrition is that the military strategy of belligerent attempts to win a war by wearing down the enemy may not necessarily achieve the intended strategic success. Worse still, it may remain inconclusive and it becomes difficult to distinguish between the …