The War Moves From Ukraine to the High Seas
The new rules of engagement are a sign of Kyiv’s desperation.
Alles anzeigen[...] About a week before the first tanker was struck, in late November, the Trump administration pushed Ukraine to accept a 28-point peace deal full of Russia’s most onerous demands. President Volodymyr Zelensky refused, and his envoys managed to soften the terms during several rounds of talks with the Americans. But the diplomatic pressure on Zelensky made him eager to show the military cards he can still play against the Russians.
Ukraine’s attacks on the shadow fleet achieved that. They also showed how Donald Trump’s peace efforts could provoke a widening series of attacks and counterattacks, as both sides seek to maximize their leverage before sitting down for talks. Until now, Ukraine has avoided striking civilian ships in international waters, because the risks appeared unacceptably high for the environment, for global energy markets, and for Ukraine’s economy.
Vladimir Putin highlighted those risks in his response to the latest strikes. “What the Ukrainian armed forces are doing now is piracy,” the Russian leader said in televised remarks on December 2, the day the fourth tanker was hit. He warned that Russia could retaliate by sinking ships that transport grain, metals, and other goods from Ukrainian ports, including ships that belong to Ukraine’s trading partners. “The most radical solution is to cut Ukraine off from the sea. Then piracy will be impossible in principle,” Putin said. If the Russians make good on that threat, the fighting could yet intensify and spread far beyond the territory of the warring sides. [...]
In Northern Europe, officials have called on Ukraine not to strike ships in the Baltic Sea, where tankers carry more than half of all seaborne exports of Russian oil and gas. “It would not be wise” for Ukraine to strike ships in that waterway, the foreign minister of Estonia, Margus Tsahkna, told an Estonian radio station last week. “It really could escalate the situation in the Baltic Sea.” Though Ukraine has the right to strike “military and strategic” targets inside Russia, Tsahkna continued, “international waters are a bit of a different matter.”[...]
Ukraine has shown little regard for collateral damage. In September 2022, its divers reportedly blew up the pipeline known as Nord Stream 2, which carried Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. More recently, Ukraine used naval drones to attack a pipeline that brings oil from Kazakhstan and Russia to be loaded onto tankers in the Black Sea. That attack on November 29 affected major Western companies, such as Chevron and ExxonMobil, that have invested in the pipeline project. The government of Kazakhstan, which depends on the sale of oil for 40 percent of its export revenue, issued a furious reaction, calling on Kyiv to “prevent similar incidents in the future.”
Ukraine was unmoved. Its armed forces would continue to “systematically weaken the military-industrial potential of the aggressor, and to degrade its ability to wage a criminal war of aggression and to murder our people,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in response, noting that Kazakhstan had issued no public condemnation of Russian bombing raids against Ukraine’s civilians and its energy infrastructure.
All of that pointed to Ukraine’s determination to expand the war beyond its shores as it deems necessary.[...]