Covert strikes across Russia and beyond are reshaping a conflict that shows no signs of letting up.
Ukraine’s daring drone attack against Russian air bases last weekend delivered “a serious slap in the face of the power … of the Russian Federation,” as Lt. Gen. Vasyl Malyuk, the head of SBU, Ukraine’s security service, boasted after the operation. Some Ukraine supporters hoped the strikes might mark a breakthrough in the war.
But what’s ahead appears to be a bloody continuation of this terrible conflict. President Donald Trump, who came into office promising to settle the war, on Thursday glibly compared it to “two young children fighting like crazy in a park. … Sometimes, you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
With Trump stepping back as a peacemaker, at least for now, Ukraine will depend more than ever on its intelligence services, which have shown an ability to strike Russian forces deep inside their home country and around the world. The front line inside Ukraine will remain a hellscape of drones and artillery. But covert operations could expand into a “dirty war” beyond the front, with more targeted killings, sabotage, and strikes on countries that supply arms to Ukraine and Russia, respectively.
