While all eyes are on the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices, the belligerents in Ukraine seem to be preparing to do battle again in the near future.
On the Ukrainian side, it is above all the aid from the United States that is changing the situation. Not only did they allocate $300 million in aid for the rapid acquisition of various communication, jamming and targeting systems as well as infantry missiles and precision rifles, they also announced that they wanted to deploy units Americans in Ukrainian ports. However, it was partly on the basis of a rumor of the same nature that the Russian authorities had launched the military operation aimed at seizing Crimea, fearing that the country's political forces would put an end to the right to use the port of Sevastopol for the Black Sea Fleet, and to see NATO vessels deployed there, more particularly American warships. In addition, the Ukrainian army has significantly strengthened its resources in recent months by receiving new modernized armored vehicles, new drones, as well as artillery, anti-aircraft and coastal defense systems. With the support of NATO trainers for 4 years, the Ukrainian army today has little to compare with what it was in 2014.
On the Russian side, reports indicate large movements of equipment and ammunition, including battle tanks, multiple rocket launchers and various armored systems, in recent weeks. According to Ukrainian reports, more than 600 tonnes of equipment, ammunition and fuel would have been transported by rail to Luhansk and Donetsk.
The OSCE daily reports continue to record a significant number of movements of heavy systems in the conflict zone between the two secessionist oblates and Ukrainian territory. In a few days, several dozen T72s and T64s were observed by the European organization's drones on the Ukrainian side, while the Russian side is mobilizing more and more artillery systems as well as anti-aircraft systems. Each camp engages in daily travel so as not to appear to be violating the Minsk II agreements, which everyone knows are desperately obsolete.
It is probable that in the absence of a deployment of a European interposition force between the belligerents, and of the reasoned and balanced consideration by these same Europeans of the positions of the different actors and effectors of this latent conflict, the warlike drift is almost inevitable in the more or less short term. The United States welcomes the possibility of a proxy conflict with Russia, the latter being unable to tolerate the permanent presence of American vessels in the Black Sea and considering the south of Ukraine up to Odessa as a primarily Russian-speaking territory, and Ukraine wanting to recover its territorial integrity, the three actors in this conflict are all pointing in the same dire direction.