Danube's Peace In NATO's Sights

Eurasia note #109: Seeking to cut Ukraine losses, keep Odesa

Jul 04, 2025

∙ Paid

Ukraine war goes into damage limitation mode as Russia advances
Russia took 588 sq km (227 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in June
Loss of Odesa would land lock the country and change map of Europe
Macron makes first call to Putin in three years & U.S. reduces military aid
FT reports Ukrainian officials are in private calling for a ceasefire
Globalist journal signals country could 'break' within six months
Would an end to Ukraine war be replaced by renewed attack on Iran?
UK's Tory leader lets slip that Ukraine and Israel are proxy warriors
Azerbaijan & Turkey drawn into the game, with Armenia a sacrificial lamb

(2,500 words or 12 minutes of your company.)

July 4, 2025

Speculation continues over Iran: loud assertions that its nuclear capabilities have been "obliterated" seem designed to avert any attempt to restart the 12-day war.

Macron and Putin hold their first phone call in three years, not just about Iran; perhaps a recognition by Macron that the tide has turned irrevocably against Ukraine.

The U.S. withdraws Patriot missile batteries from Ukraine, perhaps to prioritise Israel. It also withdraws Hellfire and 150mm artillery shells.

The U.S. could have bought weapons back from its many client states so this is not about supply. It's a signal, an imperial inversion of the thumb. Bad news for Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Trump also disbanded an inter-agency working group charged with pressuring Russia into peace talks.

NATO is desperate for Russia to stop its advance before it takes the port of Odesa, which would cut Ukraine off from the sea, leaving it as an isolated enclave.

The Danube delta is shared between Ukraine and Romania, where NATO is building one of its largest bases near the port of Constanta.

This is why NATO and the EU were determined to control this year's election in Romania, to prevent the election of any candidate who was not fully supportive of NATO's use of Romania against Russia.

See West Turning Its Back On Democracy - EU's democratic deficit is not a bug but a feature (Mar 22, 2025)

Russia's presence in Odesa would challenge the NATO-EU control of the Danube macro-region, one of the key trade routes passing through Germany, Austria, Slovakia (bordering Czechia), Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

This would mean not just the defeat of Ukraine but the a significant change in the borders of Europe, and would destroy NATO's strategy for Eastern Europe.

And for all the Green verbiage, it would not change the pollution of the Danube and the Black Sea.

In the past 24 hours Odesa has been under attack, hitting logistics, cement plants and military sites.

Ukrainian officials are in private calling for a ceasefire, Gideon Rachman wrote in Financial Times. "A sense of hopelessness risks descending over the country," Rachman wrote, with Ukraine's leadership lacking a strategy. "Ukraine may reach a breaking point within six months - if it does not receive significant new military support."

Reports that a positive Zelenskiy-Trump meeting at last week's NATO summit would be followed by fresh supply of artillery and missiles proved forlorn.

Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) ha been fully taken from Ukraine. The Russian military will be tasked to establish a 70 to 120-kilometer deep buffer zone, a military expert told TASS. Troops are advancing on the city of Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine, on the banks of the Psel River

Ukraine's biggest announcement was to place prominent Russian film director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov on the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) "kill list." That's what it has descended to: terrorist threats against cultural icons.

Proxy wars

The wars on Russia and Iran are linked. The question is not whether war will escalate, but via which new fronts.

In fact, the UK's Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch admitted as much. She defended Israel’s continuing war on Gaza, describing it as a "proxy war on behalf of the UK."

She told Sky News' Trevor Phillips in May that Israel’s war on Gaza aligns with Britain’s national interest, comparing it to "Ukraine [fighting] on behalf of Western Europe against Russia."

Badenoch likely let slip a briefing by the intelligence services. Recall Kit Klarenberg has an intriguing thesis that King Charles is directly implicated in the Gaza conflict and plans for a bigger war, as part of the resource grab that is the Great Reset.

See How -Isms Make War - The Anglosphere seems to want conflict; we must deny them (Nov 10, 2023)

If this analysis is correct, then stalemate with Russia makes more likely a renewed attack on Iran.

Manoeuvrings in the region suggest what's afoot.

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