This year certainly is non-stop action. I reckon things are just warming up. The commentary from the Middle East is constant – it is a worrying story. And in Ukraine the war rages on but it doesn’t get much attention, sadly. Just a few weeks ago, no one could imagine that we would see drones attacking buildings in Dubai, Tel Aviv and Kyiv in one day. And the latest, just the other day, is that Iran now sees Ukraine as their enemy. It is hard to make up stuff like this. The Iranian regime is Russia’s ally that supplied it with Shahed drones from the early days of the full-scale Russian war, shared its technologies, and helped start drone production in Russia.

Any comparison of the US-Iran conflict to the Russia-Ukraine war is off the mark. “No one seeks to erase Iran from the map as Russia seeks to erase Ukraine. Nor is theft of resources a motive,” writes Michael Rubin, a director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. What is very interesting is that Ukraine is sending Ukrainian drone experts to the Middle East to help. And of course, another interesting thing is what a lousy ally Russia is to Iran. Not that I care about Russia – quite the opposite.

Ukraine is fighting to survive. If Russia lays down its arms, the war ends. If Ukraine lays down its arms, Ukraine ends.

In Ukraine there is a concern that a drawn out war in Iran could place Ukraine’s air defense supplies in jeopardy. In the first three days of fighting in the Middle East, more than 800 Patriot missiles were used — more than Ukraine has received throughout the entire Russian invasion. And as one commentator said recently, “Ukraine has now provided more military aid to the U.S. this year than the U.S. has provided to Ukraine.“

The big question some Americans are asking: why did America attack Iran? I can understand Israel wanting to disable Iran’s destructive capabilities and to push for regime change, but this does not explain America’s new war. My guess is that Bibi is pulling Trump’s strings every step of the way.

It might seem that the war with Iran is not at all connected to Russia’s war in Ukraine and it would have happened even if the Russian war in Ukraine hadn’t. But it’s not like that. Russia’s war against Ukraine is directly related to the rise of aggression and conflicts in the world. A balance has been broken. Unpunished evil leads to growing tension and increase in local conflicts. Until injustice and Russia’s criminal illegal invasion into peaceful Ukraine are not punished, this will “justify” the right to act out of “the right of strength” for others.

The chaos in the world is a direct consequence of the Russian attack on Ukraine. – Italian PM Georgia Meloni

The explosive situation in the Middle East and drones in the skies over Cyprus are not separate conflicts, but a direct result of the destruction of international law. It all started in Ukraine when Russia violated the borders of a neighboring country and signaled to the entire world that the rules no longer apply. Without restoring the rule of law the chaos will only worsen.

Why isn’t Trump asking his Board of Peace members to help him open up the Strait of Hormuz? Why is he begging all the Western democracies who he has been insulting the last year to help him?

Trump is part of the problem. Trump is enabling war, in my view. He has no clue what he is doing and he is open to the highest bidder. His farcical peace negotiations with Russia about their invasion of Ukraine are a waste of time. And his envoy man Witkoff and that corrupt son-in-law Kushner both deserve a special place in hell.

Steve Witkoff update:
🇷🇺 Russia: 8 visits 
🇺🇦 Ukraine: 0 visits

My guess: the war in Iran is not going to end anytime soon. And Ukraine will have to fight harder than ever. But they will survive, albeit with a lot more pain.

War is here to stay. And so is inflation. It didn’t have to be like this.

There are so many Russians in Dubai, and now, they are experiencing some drone attacks. Not nice hey! But it is a walk in the park compared to what their countrymen have inflicted on Ukraine.

Ukrainians live under endless Russian strikes using various types of weapons. In the last week of winter alone, Russia launched more than 1,720 strike drones, nearly 1,300 guided aerial bombs, and over 100 missiles of different types against Ukraine.

Over the three winter months, the Russians launched more than 14,670 guided aerial bombs, 738 missiles, and nearly 19,000 strike drones against Ukrainians, most of them Russian-Iranian Shahed drones. These are the same drones that the Iranian regime is now launching at countries in the Middle East. But again, it is very mild compared to what Ukrainians experience just about every day.

The Iranians and their Russian allies had four years of target practice on Ukrainian cities to improve their Shahed drones. And most of the world smiled politely and thought it is just the Ukrainians’ unfortunate problem.

So let me get this right. The US can find and kill a leader of a foreign country halfway around the world. But they can’t find any of the paedophiles and child traffickers from the Epstein list and arrest any of them in their own country?

I will never forget that morning, around 5 am, when the bombs fell. It is still all so hard to believe. How can war be a part of modern life. But sadly, it is, and it is not going away. I fear a bigger war is developing. Of course, I pray I am wrong.

Ukraine deserves a better conversation in the world. I have been saying this for over 18 years. I do believe things are changing, but way too slowly.

We are busy with chapter 4 of Kyiv of Mine. It will be a darker story. The theme of this installment is “exhaustion”. This work helps me to say sane. Thank you to anyone reading this who has supported this difficult storytelling journey. Please help to spread the word as wide as you can. Ukraine needs all the love and support it can get.

Ukraine will not give up to its evil neighbour. But yes, there is a lot more pain to come. It is a big tragedy and we will all pay a price for all the double standards we have experienced, especially in the past year, since that bute Trump started his madness again.

“Democracy depends on citizens who participate, not spectators who wait.”

“Kyiv is the place where the destiny of the 21st century is going to be decided. If Kyiv stands then democracy stands. International law means something.”

I am on a train. It is a long journey back to London and I am sad to be leaving Kyiv, again. But I am looking forward to seeing Marta and Bunster. On that Sunday night, before I left for Ukraine, I was putting Bunster to bed and he says to me “Daddy, can we all go to Ukraine one day?” I look at him and said “I hope so Bun man”. He then says “Can we stay there forever?” I almost started to cry, but I know this naughty little Bunster and I say to him curiously, “How come you want to be in Ukraine?” And he says “Because my toys are there?” Ah, the honesty of children. I got a cool present for this little man from an awesome toy shop in the city – he is going to love it.

“The EU and the US alike — have taken far too long to cut off Russian gas and oil from world markets. The US government has stopped all military aid to Ukraine — what continues are shipments of US arms to Ukraine that are purchased by Europeans, as well as European arms shipments. Even though the Ukrainian need is great and the Europeans are paying for everything, the United States has been slow to make deliveries. We are not sending the Ukrainians the air defense they need to protect themselves. This is one reason millions of people are in the cold, and why civilians die almost every day.

The major policy of the Trump administration has been to use the word “peace.” Peace comes when an aggressor ceases to aggress and the country that is attacked can rebuild. But Trump has been unable to muster a policy that would change Russia’s incentives. He has difficulty even presenting the war as a war, rather than as a misunderstanding about real estate; his administration issues official statements that praise Russia for its desire for peace, even as the offensives continue missiles fall. Trump has put pressure on Ukrainians, who, unlike the Russians, have to fight. For Russia, this is an ego war, a war by a dictator for his own legacy. For Ukraine, this is a war of national sovereignty and physical survival.“

“Ukrainians shouldn’t have to be resilient. If Ukraine’s partners were to give the kind of support Kyiv continually begged for, civilians would not have to be suffering.

Praising their resilience is like standing on the shore, watching a person struggle not to drown in a riptide. Instead of sending a lifeboat to save them, you praise them for being such a strong swimmer. If you decide a nation is resilient, you shrink your obligation to take any action to help them.

Resilient people always figure it out on their own, right?

The continued repetition of a resilience narrative is also damaging because it slowly softens outsiders’ comprehension of what war is over time. Foreign audiences don’t want to think about the ever-deteriorating conditions civilians are forced to live in — they want to read about how bars stay open during a blackout, or focus on the ways in which Russia could be losing.

It’s uncomfortable to think about how the trauma of Russia’s war in Ukraine is affecting real people, every day, and how it will seep down through generations. It’s far more digestible to view the war through the lens of resilience because it transforms a nation’s suffering into a positive, hopeful, character-forming experience.

We love a story where a hero finds strength amid immense adversity, because in our culture, we’re taught that the character who chooses to be resilient always wins, no matter the odds.

Resilience is, at its core, a positive character trait when you have a choice in how to act. When we talk about Ukraine’s resilience, we omit what Ukrainians know very well — that Russia isn’t going to stop its war until Ukrainian independence is crushed. Ukrainians have no choice but to continue and resist Russia’s demands.”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-02-11-letter-from-kyiv-exhausted-but-unbroken-after-four-years-of-fullscale-war/