Notes

What history shows: How will the war in Ukraine end? Russia-Ukraine war
The worry is that even this is overly optimistic, although it is the strategy that western leader appears to be selling to their publics. “There is a real problem here in that we may be over-encouraged by Ukraine’s early successes in counterattacking last year,” said James Nixey, a Russia expert at the Chatham House thinktank. Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He agreed to a House rules change that would allow any member to initiate a vote to remove him as speaker, forcing him to tread carefully even on issues that enjoy majority Republican support — such as Ukraine assistance.

Given what’s at stake — not just the survival of Ukraine but of the whole international order — that would be risky. Some observers have suggested that continued defeats on the battlefield might result in Putin’s downfall. However, a total Russian retreat could be possible if Putin were to be ousted or die. Now Xi faces deep economic malaise, with an investment-driven, state-controlled model that no longer works. As such, many Ukrainians are against the war, with "no war" becoming a common slogan. Our explainer tackles this question - among others - and takes the conflict back to basics.
And even once Russian forces have achieved some presence in Ukraine's cities, perhaps they struggle to maintain control. Maybe Russia cannot provide enough troops to cover such a vast country. Ukraine's defensive forces transform into an effective insurgency, well-motivated and supported by local populations. And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents. In his speech, Bush raised the possibility that the war could divide the country and never formally end – just like with what happened in the Korean Peninsula.

A new world, whatever the scenario
In his first visit to neighbouring Ukraine as prime minister, Poland's Donald Tusk delivered a message of friendship to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and said both sides "have reached a common understanding" over protests by Polish truckers. Tusk, the former president of the European Council, meanwhile said that Poland would try to help Ukraine with its process of EU accession. The leaders also discussed "the possibilities of joint future arms production," Zelenskyy said. "We appreciate such unflagging support. There is a new form of our cooperation – aimed at a larger scale of arms purchases for Ukrainian needs – the Polish loan for Ukraine," Zelenskyy said in a statement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a "new Polish defense package" after meeting in Kyiv with Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was making his first visit to a non-EU country since returning to the top job in December. However, Ambassador Sajdik believes compromise is possible and that Minsk is a viable solution to end the conflict.

Most warn that Ukrainians would continue to fight against any puppet regime, with the conflict descending into an insurgency with those Ukrainians left in the country attempting to topple any such regime by any means available. Ukraine will probably try to exploit the success it has had in re-establishing its control over the western Black Sea and its vital trade corridor to the Bosphorus. From the early panic in Ukraine's cities, to the broader context that led us here, this is your guide to understanding day one of the invasion. At different times in this conflict Russia has resembled Iran’s position, and Ukraine has mirrored Iraq’s in that war — if only incompletely — said Jeremy Morris, professor of global studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. A man was also killed in shelling outside the major eastern city of Kharkiv.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia's military and other government agencies were taking the necessary measures, including when it comes to air defences, after the suspected Ukrainian drone attack on the terminal. Peskov added on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had received reports on the Donetsk attack and that Russia's "special military operation" — as it calls its invasion of Ukraine — would continue in order to "protect" people. Ukrainian armed forces operating in the region denied they had carried out the attack, stating Sunday that they "did not conduct any combat operations with means of destruction." Ukrainians are undeterred in their fighting spirit, and Kyiv’s international partners show no sign of weakening in their resolve of support. On the contrary, all the signs are that he will double down and continue to lay waste to a country whose very right to exist he denies.

After the Ukraine war, what comes next? NATO allies don't agree
Or Mr Putin could resort to more-drastic measures, including the use of nuclear weapons, Dr Oliker warns. "The Ukrainians, I think, have confounded most expectations — [but], I think, this is all contingent on Western support continuing," King's College London professor of conflict and security Tracey German said. Russian and Ukrainian forces have essentially been locked in a slow, grinding fight since November, particularly around the gateway to the north and central parts of Luhansk, as the war shifted into positional warfare. In a two-hour address on Tuesday night, Vladimir Putin gave no indication the war would end any time soon, promising to continue Russia's offensive against its neighbour "step by step". However, Jones said that NATO declaring war on Russia could create a major war that could pull in other countries like China, which is an outcome that the organization likely wants to avoid. In its current phase, the conflict appears to have become a war of attrition.


Currently, western intelligence estimates Russia is taking 1,000 casualties a day. There remains speculation that the Kremlin will seek a fresh mobilisation, and another worry is that Beijing may start covertly supplying Russia. One key question that could determine the war’s end game is how long Ukraine’s backers can keep up their arms donations to Kyiv. The Biden administration earlier this month announced it is sending Ukraine the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb.


Mr Putin could declare Western arms supplies to Ukrainian forces are an act of aggression that warrant retaliation. He could threaten to send troops into the Baltic states - which are members of Nato - such as Lithuania, to establish a land corridor with the Russian coastal exclave of Kaliningrad. Maybe Russian forces get bogged down, hampered by low morale, poor logistics and inept leadership. Maybe it takes longer for Russian forces to secure cities like Kyiv whose defenders fight from street to street.

“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. The Ukraine war has had tremendous ripple effects throughout the world's economy by driving up gas prices and inflation rates, impeding the flow of goods, exacerbating world hunger and stretching the entire humanitarian system. The Russia-installed head of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said on Telegram Monday that there would be a day of mourning for the dead. Elsewhere, a fire broke out at a terminal of Russia's largest liquefied natural gas producer Novatek on the Baltic Sea, a regional official said on Sunday, amid reports of drone sightings in the area. Ukraine's resistance and willingness to fight remains strong, but — if there is a Russian offensive on the horizon as some are predicting — their fortitude will once again be put to the test.
To date, only one city has definitively fallen to the Russians since the invasion began in the early morning of Feb. 24 — Kherson — although others like Mariupol, in the south, appear to be perilously close amid food, water and power shortages. "The price we pay is in money, while the price the Ukrainians pay is in blood. If authoritarian regimes see that force is rewarded, we will all pay a much higher price," NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of last year. In the meantime, the costs of the war would continue to weigh heavily on Russia, possibly weakening Mr Putin's internal support. Any progress towards talks would likely start with a ceasefire or a similar type of temporary arrangement that would enable both sides to suspend fighting, the analysts suggest.

During President Putin's marathon state address on Feb. 21, he accused Western countries of attempting "to deprive Russia of these historical territories that are now called Ukraine," making war the only way to "protect the people in our historical lands." The Korean scenario would be part of the second option, which predicts the serious danger that is democratic reversal in Ukraine. President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile. At the same time, if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that Ukraine may not achieve total military success in the next year or two. The slower global economic growth that our scenarios predict, along with the retrenchment and fragmentation of globalization, would be unwelcome developments for most of the world’s nations.
The Biden administration has said the war must end before Ukraine can join NATO, because it does not want to risk direct U.S. involvement. But it has not defined what it means, in this context, for the war to be “over.” Must there be a formal peace treaty? Must there be a period of months or years in which Russia does not fire a single shell into Ukraine?


Tanks and troops have poured into Ukraine at points along its eastern, southern and northern borders, Ukraine says. BBC correspondents heard loud bangs in the capital Kyiv, as well as Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Whatever scenario comes next, there is little doubt that Russia will enter a period of faster decline.

From the very beginning of the war, President Putin has drawn parallels between the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II and the current military campaign against supposed "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine. 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. However, it now appears to have limited its ambitions to securing land in Ukraine's east and south. Ukraine claims it has killed more than 50,000 Russian troops, and at the end of August said it had lost nearly 9,000 military personnel since the start of the conflict.
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