February 28, 2026 | Prepared for Academic and Policy Analysis
I. Executive Summary
On February 28, 2026, two of the most consequential geopolitical trajectories of the 2020s violently intersected. A third round of US-brokered trilateral peace talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States — tentatively scheduled for Abu Dhabi in early March — was overtaken by events when the United States and Israel launched “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran. Iran’s retaliatory strikes targeted US military bases across the Gulf, including the Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi, killing one civilian. The UAE — which had served as the carefully chosen neutral venue for Ukraine diplomacy since January 2026 — was suddenly an active zone of regional warfare. This case study examines how a single military escalation simultaneously disrupted two distinct diplomatic tracks, the systemic risks now radiating outward, and what the confluence of these crises means for small, trade-dependent states like Singapore.
II. Background: The Ukraine Trilateral Diplomatic Track
Origins and Venue Selection
The first round of trilateral US-Ukraine-Russia peace talks took place in Abu Dhabi in late January 2026, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion. The Kyiv Independent The choice of Abu Dhabi was deliberate: the UAE offered political neutrality, geographic accessibility, and a reputation for discreet high-stakes diplomacy cultivated over years of mediating between Washington and Tehran.
A second round followed on February 4–5, concluding with a prisoner-of-war exchange of 314 detainees — the first such swap in five months — and an agreement between the US and Russia to reestablish “high-level military-to-military dialogue.” ABC News Structurally, these were confidence-building measures, not breakthroughs on the core territorial disputes.
The Core Deadlock
Russia continued pressing Ukraine to withdraw from the Donbas, a condition Kyiv described as one it would “never accept,” while the US gave both parties a June 2026 deadline to reach a deal, with Zelenskiy acknowledging that the Americans would “put pressure on the parties precisely according to this schedule.” NPR
The territorial question remained the dominant obstacle: Putin, citing the “formula agreed upon in Anchorage” from his August 2025 summit with Trump, insisted that any settlement must involve Ukrainian withdrawal from parts of Donetsk and Luhansk not fully occupied by Russia. The Kyiv Independent
The Third Round That Never Was
On February 26, Zelenskiy confirmed that the next round of talks would “most likely” be held in Abu Dhabi, following a Geneva meeting between US and Ukrainian officials focused on post-war reconstruction. News.az Within 48 hours, that plan was overtaken by the launch of Operation Epic Fury.
III. The Iran Escalation: Operation Epic Fury
A Diplomatic Window That Closed Without Warning
The timeline is striking: on February 26, a third round of US-Iran nuclear talks in Geneva concluded with Oman’s mediating foreign minister citing “significant progress,” with more discussions promised for the following week. Al Jazeera Two days later, strikes began.
According to a senior Middle East diplomat with direct knowledge of the talks, as negotiations “appeared close to success, Israel intervened to preempt diplomacy.” NBC News Whether this reflects a coordinated US-Israeli decision or a unilateral Israeli action that Washington subsequently endorsed remains contested.
The Operation Itself
Codenamed “Roaring Lion” by Israel and “Operation Epic Fury” by the US Department of Defense, the joint attack on February 28 targeted locations in Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, and Kermanshah. Trump declared the objective was to destroy Iran’s missile and military capabilities, prevent nuclear weapons acquisition, and ultimately topple the regime. Wikipedia
The strikes were preceded by a significant buildup: in January 2026, Trump announced a US “armada” heading to the Middle East including the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford; in his State of the Union on February 24, he condemned Iran’s nuclear ambitions as “sinister.” Wikipedia
Iran’s Retaliation and the UAE
Iran’s IRGC claimed to have struck “all Israeli and US military targets in the Middle East,” including in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, where the Al Dhafra Air Base hosts US assets. Al Jazeera
The UAE’s defense ministry confirmed the interception of several Iranian missiles, but acknowledged that one civilian of Asian nationality was killed by interceptor debris falling on a residential area in Abu Dhabi. Gulf News Dubai and Sharjah airports suspended all flights. The US Embassy in Abu Dhabi issued a shelter-in-place alert for all American staff and citizens.
A top UAE official, presidential adviser Anwar Gargash, told CNN that his country had not been given prior notice of the military operation and described the conflict as an “historic moment filled with a lot of challenges,” acknowledging that the region had “failed” to ensure stability. CNN
IV. The Diplomatic Cascade: Connecting the Two Crises
Abu Dhabi as a Shared Casualty
The two crises are connected not just chronologically but structurally. The UAE’s viability as a neutral diplomatic venue depended on a perception of it as a space removed from the region’s fault lines. That perception was shattered on February 28. With Iranian missiles intercepted over Abu Dhabi, Dubai’s airports closed, and the US Embassy under shelter-in-place protocols, the UAE’s neutrality became physically untenable, at least in the near term.
Zelenskiy’s response was measured but significant: he conditioned the time and place of future talks on “the security situation” and the presence of “real diplomatic possibilities,” a formulation that implicitly acknowledged the Abu Dhabi venue was no longer viable. Devdiscourse
The Bandwidth Problem
The Trump administration is now simultaneously managing “major combat operations” in Iran, the Ukraine peace process with a self-imposed June deadline, and the diplomatic fallout across Gulf states. Steve Witkoff — the same envoy who led the Ukraine trilateral talks — was also a key figure in US-Iran nuclear negotiations. The overlap is not incidental; it reflects the extraordinary concentration of US diplomatic bandwidth in a handful of individuals. Whether these two tracks can be managed in parallel, or whether one will consume the other, is the central strategic question of the coming weeks.
Russia’s Position
Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes, calling them “particularly reprehensible” for occurring “under the cover of the renewed negotiation process” on Iran’s nuclear program. CNBC This framing serves multiple Russian interests: it paints the US as an unreliable negotiating partner — a message directed simultaneously at Iran, at Beijing, and at Kyiv’s European backers — while potentially giving Moscow leverage to slow-walk the Ukraine talks by pointing to US distraction.
V. Outlook: Three Scenarios
Scenario A — Rapid Containment (Low Probability)
US and Israeli strikes achieve their stated objectives within days, Iran’s retaliatory capacity is substantially degraded, and a ceasefire or de facto cessation of hostilities emerges within two weeks. Abu Dhabi’s role as a diplomatic hub is temporarily disrupted but recovers. Ukraine talks resume in an alternative neutral venue — Oman or perhaps a European capital — in late March. This scenario depends on Iranian state cohesion collapsing faster than historical analogies suggest.
Scenario B — Protracted Regional Conflict (Moderate Probability)
CNN reported that US military planners were preparing for “several days of attacks” rather than a limited strike, with sources indicating a broader campaign targeting Iranian state and security infrastructure. CNN If this extends into weeks, Gulf airspace remains restricted, energy markets destabilize, and the diplomatic infrastructure for Ukraine talks — which relied on the UAE’s accessibility and neutrality — is functionally unavailable. The June deadline for Ukraine becomes increasingly notional as US attention fragments.
Scenario C — Strait of Hormuz Disruption (Tail Risk, Severe Impact)
Bloomberg reported that one of Iran’s retaliatory options is to block or effectively close the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade passes. Bloomberg Vandana Hari, CEO of Singapore-based Vanda Insights, assessed that oil prices would jump to $80 per barrel in a “knee-jerk reaction” if conflict continued through Monday, with worst-case scenarios involving “major disruption of oil flows through the Middle East” if Iran’s navy and military are not pre-emptively disarmed. The National A Strait closure — however temporary — would represent a structural shock to the global economy, not merely a war premium.
VI. Singapore: Exposure and Strategic Implications
Singapore’s position is one of acute vulnerability layered over structural resilience. It bears scrutiny across four dimensions.
1. Energy Security
Singapore has no indigenous oil or gas production. Its refining and petrochemical complex on Jurong Island — one of the largest in Asia — processes roughly 1.5 million barrels per day, a significant portion of which originates from Gulf producers whose exports transit the Strait of Hormuz. Almost half of India’s crude oil imports and around 60 percent of its natural gas supplies move through the Strait; analogous dependencies apply across Southeast Asian import-dependent economies, including Singapore’s immediate neighbors. Al Jazeera Any disruption to Hormuz flows would sharply increase input costs for Singapore’s refining sector, raise domestic fuel and utility prices, and transmit inflationary pressure through manufacturing supply chains.
2. Aviation and Maritime Trade
Singapore’s Changi Airport is one of the world’s most critical aviation hubs, and Singapore’s port is consistently among the world’s top two container ports. With Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Qatari, and UAE airspace closed in the immediate aftermath of the strikes, long-haul flights between Europe and Southeast Asia have been forced onto significantly longer rerouted paths — adding hours to flight times, increasing fuel costs, and disrupting connection networks that rely on Gulf hub-and-spoke transit. Travel And Tour World A sustained closure of Gulf airspace would redirect traffic flows in ways that could benefit Changi in the short run (as an alternative transit hub) but would impose systemic costs through higher operating expenses for Singapore Airlines and freight partners.
3. Financial Markets and Currency
Singapore functions as a regional financial center. The SGD is a managed float, and MAS has historically used exchange rate policy as the primary macroeconomic tool. A sustained oil price spike — BloombergNEF projected Brent could average $91 per barrel in Q4 2026 under a scenario of persistent Iranian oil disruption BloombergNEF — would be materially inflationary for import-dependent Singapore and would complicate MAS’s monetary policy calculus. Capital flows toward safe-haven assets could affect Singapore’s status as a financial hub, though historically Singapore has benefited from flight-to-quality dynamics in Asian crises.
4. Geopolitical Positioning
Singapore’s foreign policy is defined by its commitment to multilateralism, the rules-based international order, and ASEAN centrality. The US-Israel strikes on Iran — launched while diplomatic talks were actively ongoing, and without UN Security Council authorization — present a direct challenge to these principles. Singapore faces a familiar dilemma: its security architecture depends substantially on the US military presence in the region, while its economic architecture requires stable, rule-governed global trade. A response that is too strongly condemnatory of Washington risks the security relationship; one that is insufficiently clear risks Singapore’s standing as a credible advocate for international law. MFA will likely issue a carefully worded call for “restraint” and a “return to dialogue” — the Singapore diplomatic formula for precisely this class of crisis.
VII. Policy Solutions and Diplomatic Pathways
On the Ukraine track: A replacement venue must be identified urgently. Oman — which notably was not struck by Iran despite being the only GCC state spared from retaliatory missiles, owing to its mediating role — is the most natural candidate. Geneva and Vienna remain viable European alternatives. The June deadline should be treated as a structural incentive, not abandoned; but US negotiating bandwidth constraints must be acknowledged and compensated for by elevating European diplomatic involvement.
On the Iran track: Oman, which mediated the US-Iran nuclear talks, expressed that it was “dismayed” by the strikes and called for a return to negotiations. euronews Oman and Qatar — which also intercepted Iranian missiles but publicly condemned both the strikes and Iran’s retaliation — are best positioned to reconstruct a ceasefire channel. The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas similarly called for a “negotiated peace,” and France, Germany, and the UK issued a joint statement urging Iran to “seek a negotiated solution.” A multilateral ceasefire proposal co-sponsored by European powers and Gulf states, with Chinese participation as a pressure lever on Iran, represents the most structurally viable off-ramp.
On global energy stability: IEA member states, including Singapore’s close partners, should coordinate a strategic petroleum reserve release to signal market stabilization intent and contain a speculative price spike before it becomes a self-fulfilling demand shock.
For Singapore specifically: MFA should issue a public statement calling for restraint and adherence to international law while privately reinforcing communication channels with both Washington and Gulf partners. MAS should signal readiness to deploy exchange rate policy tools if inflationary pressure materializes. The Civil Aviation Authority and MPA should activate contingency routing protocols for aviation and shipping. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be reviewed for adequacy given the altered risk environment.
VIII. Conclusion
What began as a question of where to hold the next round of Ukraine peace talks has, within 48 hours, become a case study in the fragility of diplomatic infrastructure and the systemic contagion properties of simultaneous geopolitical crises. The UAE — constructed over decades as a neutral space for difficult conversations — was transformed overnight into a theater of active conflict. The US administration now faces the extraordinary challenge of managing a hot war against Iran, a Ukraine peace process with a self-imposed deadline, and the diplomatic alienation of Gulf partners who were neither warned nor consulted. For Singapore, the lesson is one it has absorbed before: in a world where order is maintained by great power restraint, the periods when that restraint fails are the moments of maximum exposure for small, trade-dependent states that have built their prosperity on the assumption of stability.