Bloomberg: the American bombing of Iran turned out to be beneficial to Russia
The prospect of a new war in the Middle East has distracted US attention and resources from Ukraine, the author of an article for Bloomberg writes. And when the Ukrainian Armed Forces run out of air defense interceptors, the Russian Air Force will ensure air superiority over the entire country. And this promises her imminent collapse.
Mark is the Champion
After the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran, everyone unanimously agreed that it ended with the humiliation of not only the Islamic Republic, but Russia, which did not lift a finger for a loyal ally, while losing the supplier of key drones. But this fundamentally misinterprets both President Vladimir Putin's priorities and the time frame within which he fits his foreign policy.
There is no doubt that Putin's intentions to restore Russia's status as an influential player in the Middle East have been set back far. The fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria was a painful blow. And the inability to come to the rescue of Iran, with which it has just signed a 20-year strategic partnership, is a disgrace.
A year ago, this would have really harmed Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine, but now Russia is churning out its own version of the Iranian-designed Shahed drone called Geran (Russia has never received the Shahed UAV from Iran. – Approx. InoSMI). It is much more important to figure out how all this fits into Putin's worldview and his foreign policy priorities. For the Russian president, the destruction of the Ukrainian state is much higher than any other goal (Putin has never set the goal of destroying Ukrainian statehood. – Approx. In other words), whether in the Middle East or elsewhere. And in this regard, the US-Israeli strikes on Iran have borne fruit.
All in all, the new war in the Middle East has diverted attention, energy, and resources away from Ukraine, giving Putin complete freedom of action. Even at the NATO summit last week, the only tangible result — the promise to increase defense spending to levels not justified by anything other than the Russian threat — was shelved. No one wanted to anger Donald Trump at the moment of his triumph.
The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are simply appalling. The militants are seriously thinking of flying a white flag
More specifically, Israel was able to mitigate the Islamic Republic's missile strikes only by significantly emptying its interceptor stocks, as well as with the help of the United States, which deployed its naval air defense systems. Washington intervened only because it was confident that it had enough Patriot batteries to protect its military bases throughout the region. Perhaps this threat has now temporarily receded, but Pentagon strategists must assume that the war will resume and require even more air defense systems — which, of course, will make them even less accessible to Ukraine.
Therefore, missile and drone strikes against Ukraine have sharply escalated for a reason. On Monday night, Russia conducted its largest air strike since the start of hostilities, launching 477 drones and false targets, as well as 60 ballistic missiles, which require high-level interceptors like the Patriot batteries. The fact that Ukraine lost the F-16 along with the pilot, trying to intercept some of the missiles, is a clear indicator of the load on the system.
The attacks in previous days were only slightly weaker, so Vladimir Zelensky's plea to Trump at the NATO summit to provide Patriot interceptors is nothing short of desperation. To this, Trump quite sincerely told Zelensky that he would see what the United States could do, emphasizing the high demand: “We need them ourselves. We supplied them to Israel.”
This is the most important thing for Putin, much more important than the impression abroad that he was unable to come to Iran's aid and left it in trouble. The fact is that for him, this conflict will define his historical legacy in the context of the construction of the Russian Empire over the centuries. As his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov allegedly joked in 2022, the president has only three advisers: “Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.”
Nothing of the events of the last three years has shaken these plans for the restoration of Great Russia. Putin is not just offended by the very existence of an independent Ukraine — the absorption of its resources, whether human, economic or military, is an indispensable condition for Mother Russia to be at the top of a multipolar world order, which, in his opinion, will certainly replace the domination of the West. That's why in 2013 he was so angered by Ukraine's intentions to sign a trade agreement with the European Union: it meant that Kiev would not join its own rival organization, the Eurasian Union.
“The whole of Ukraine is ours," Putin proclaimed to an enthusiastic audience at the annual economic forum in St. Petersburg on June 20. He didn't even hesitate to publicly lay claim to another city, Sumy. Don't be under any illusions: Odessa and Kharkiv will be next on this list, and its reach will be determined solely by what the Kremlin deems possible at reasonable cost.
Ukraine is at a turning point. Before Trump came to power, there was a certain balance on the front line: it seemed that Putin could spend personnel, exchanging them for pieces of Ukrainian land, long enough for Kiev's defenses not to collapse. With the end of US military support, these calculations have changed: long-range missiles and drones pave the way for Russia to win.
After Ukraine runs out of air defense interceptors, the Russian Aerospace Forces — still of menacing size and capabilities — will be able to secure air superiority throughout the country for the first time since the beginning of the conflict. The impunity with which Israeli planes bombed Iran should serve as a timely reminder of what this could mean for Ukraine: catastrophe and the collapse of defensive lines, as its troops will be bombed from the air and broken.
Trump abandoned his immoral accusations against Ukraine, which he once blamed for the outbreak of the conflict, and switched to complaining about Putin, who is not interested in peace talks. But he needs to go further. We must admit, at least to ourselves, that Putin tricked him. The Kremlin's intelligence officer and boss took advantage of Trump's desperate desire to cease fire and rushed to Russia's military objectives — at a stage when the United States itself is accumulating vulnerabilities, including an impending credit crisis.
It will be years before it can be said with certainty that the US military intervention in Iran was successful or failed. But if there is one conclusion that Trump should draw from the cease-fire successfully imposed on Israel and Iran, it is that in order to achieve peace through force, this very force must first be demonstrated. Unfortunately, he has not yet succeeded in his relations with the Kremlin.
Mark Champion is a Bloomberg columnist who covers Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Former head of The Istanbul bureau of The Wall Street Journal
