Notes

When will the Russia-Ukraine war end? Experts offer their predictions
He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions. Its most recent death count was in March, when it said 1,351 Russian soldiers had died since the invasion began. Western shipments of weaponry are being used heavily by Ukrainian forces. When launching the invasion in February, President Vladimir Putin said his goal was to "demilitarise Ukraine". The Kremlin said its operations would continue "until all the tasks originally set" had been achieved. The cities of Izyum and Kupiansk, which Ukraine says were retaken on 10 September, were both key supply hubs for the Russian forces.

"The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open," said UN Secretary General António Guterres. It has a homegrown war machine and enormous reserves of manpower and resources, and Morris believes there is a good chance Russia can sustain the conflict for years to come. NATO does not want a full-scale war in Europe, and Russian President Vladimir Putin knows he would lose a conflict with a 30-member military alliance led by the Americans.
“I would love to think the kinetic phase could end in 2023, but I suspect we could be looking at another three years with this scale of fighting,” Roberts said. At the same time, election season in the United States — Ukraine’s most important backer — stands to spur arguments that a war in Europe of unknown duration is a costly nuisance for America. That scenario could embolden critics of the war; increase public discontent with continued funding for Ukraine; and pose a problem in terms of arms production and supplies for the West. It's become clear that the counteroffensive won't produce quick results and that success — however that might be measured in terms of retaking Russian-occupied territory — is not guaranteed. Ukraine will do all it can to keep pressure on the Russians there to make it untenable for the Russian navy in Sevastopol, the handful of air force bases there and their logistics base at Dzankoy.

A month after Prigozhin’s suspicious death, the Kremlin is silent on his plane crash and legacy
It has also said it will continue to target these areas with military strikes. There is also a Ukrainian counter-attack around the Kherson region in the south of the country. Meanwhile, Indian thinktank Observer Research Foundation's Russia expert, Nandan Unnikrishnan, said India was unlikely to sign "any major military deal" with Russia because it would cross a red line with the US. Unnamed Indian government sources have suggested India wants to distance itself from Russia, according to Reuters news agency. If the US abandons the military alliance, it will fall to European countries to ensure a Ukrainian victory, Mr OBrien says.


Similar attacks continued for several days and show no sign of abating in the new year. This prompted the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to warn that Russia was probably planning a prolonged air campaign aimed at exhausting Ukraine. The recent arms donations — Kyiv still wants fighter aircraft and long-range tactical missiles — are predicated on the assumption they’ll force Moscow to end its invasion and begin negotiations because military costs are too high.

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"The nightmare scenario would be that the states close to Russia double down on aid to Ukraine while those farther west decide to force a deal on Putin's terms. Then Europe itself could fracture," he says. "The document referred to in the Financial Times article is a background note written by the secretariat of the council under its own responsibility which describes the current status of the Hungarian economy," the statement by the senior EU official said. That could end up looking something like the Korean peninsula, with a demilitarised zone between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled territory, or a grinding perpetual conflict that flares up and down, eventually resulting in an uneasy truce. But to analysts, like Morris, the prospect of Putin being removed is extremely unlikely — and the chances that whoever replaces him will be less hawkish are even more remote. “There isn’t really any source of alternative power to coalesce around while Putin is healthy and alive,” said Morris. The Russian ruling elite saw the Soviet Union’s collapse merely as a reconfiguration in which former Soviet countries would “continue to be together in some way”, Popova told Al Jazeera, whereas Ukraine saw it as an opportunity to be fully independent.


A protracted and costly World War I helped usher in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. “Essentially once the West made a decision that Ukraine is important … it had to support them to the end, and that means the Ukrainians are the ones who will decide when they’re going to stop,” he said. Still, Western arms — even though supplied in an incremental, cautious manner — in Ukraine have similarly been key to halting Russian advances.


The rapidity and the fury with which the United States, Europe, and major Asian economies (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia) slapped severe sanctions on Russia almost certainly came as a shock to China’s leaders. The swift Western response will give ammunition to Chinese proponents of more fully decoupling the country’s financial system from the West. Beijing’s goals as part of its Made in China 2025 initiative to become self-sufficient in key high-tech areas, and China Standards 2035, an effort to shape trade and technology standards and rules, seem even more urgent. What follows are four scenarios for how this war could conclude and the alternative geopolitical futures that might result, transforming international relations over the course of the next two to three years. We develop scenarios not to predict the future but to help decision makers imagine what could happen next and devise ways to prevent the worst case. The only certainty about the war over Ukraine is that all existing certainties have been shattered.


This, in turn, would likely weaken the regime and distract Russia from what remains of its war effort. If there was no clear successor, Mr Putin's departure could spur on a brutal power struggle among pro-war, right-wing nationalists, authoritarian conservatives and a murky anti-war movement. Mr Putin's exit would not end the war in Ukraine because the Russian leader would likely be replaced by another pro-war nationalist, Professor Clarke said. However, if the war were to drag on this year and into next year, the reasoning could change. Mr Zelenskyy has so far ruled this out as a possibility, proposing a 10-point "formula for peace," which includes demands for a full withdrawal from Ukraine's territory.

It argues Western military assistance for Ukraine threatens its security and wants formal commitments barring Nato's expansion eastwards. And even though the fall of the Soviet Union was notable for its lack of bloodshed, many in Ukraine refer to today's conflict as a true "war of independence." Meanwhile, Western powers have pledged coveted battle tanks to Ukraine, and there is much talk of a new Russian spring offensive. The challenge now is training and equipping an armored force big enough and sophisticated enough to envelop Russia’s fighting force.
That became part of what is now collectively called the Minsk agreements. They outlined a plan of how to end the conflict between Ukrainian and Russian-backed separatist forces in the troubled region in eastern Ukraine known as the Donbas. Hastening a change of mind in Moscow – possible through a combination of Ukrainian fighting spirit and western support – will be the only way to bring this tragedy to an end in 2023. On https://barlow-larsen.blogbright.net/how-tall-is-brian-kilmeade-of-fox-news of that, Ukraine has had some remarkable successes on the battlefield as well of late. These include successful drone strikes against airbases in Russia in December and a missile strike against Russian troop concentration area in Makiivka, close to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on New Year’s Day.


Rather than taking more territory, Russia's objectives in the current stage of war seem to be to weaken Ukraine's resources, economy, and army. Another possibility is that fighting continues to rage on without any cease-fire or settlement, which, according to Jones, could go on for years. It is unlikely now that Russia would be able to turn the war around entirely and achieve its original aims, but it could accept a "victory" in the form of a peace deal in which it takes more territory than it had before the invasion began. The more complicated question is what Ukraine would be willing to give up in any peace deal. Jones said it would be almost "politically suicidal" for any leader in Kyiv to give away any Ukrainian territory.

Another possibility is that fighting continues to rage on without any cease-fire or settlement, which, according to Jones, could go on for years. "The United States maintains by far the world's most powerful nuclear stockpile, but with the US out of the mix, the French and British, with their much smaller arsenals, would be Europe’s only nuclear deterrent," Mr OBrien says. Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all. However, Ambassador Sajdik believes compromise is possible and that Minsk is a viable solution to end the conflict. One of Ukraine's main aims is to sever the Russian "land bridge" that stretches from Russia and across the occupied part of southern Ukraine to Crimea, but that's an area where Russia's fortifications are among the heaviest.
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