Notes

Ukraine war: despite Russian setbacks, an end to the conflict is not yet in sight
Ukraine has declared martial law - which means the military takes control temporarily. It has cut diplomatic ties with Russia, offered weapons to anyone who wants them and declared an overnight curfew for Kyiv. But later on Thursday President Zelensky said Ukraine had suffered losses and a lot of aircraft and armoured vehicles had been destroyed. The Russian offensive was preceded by artillery fire and there were injuries to border guards, the DPSU said.


The fervent faith in economic interdependence that long characterized German foreign policy is no more. Wielding its economic prowess and new military investments, Germany wants to take a leading role in international affairs. 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.

Russia-Ukraine: Can a solution be found for war in Ukraine's east?
Equally, worrying for Kyiv is a potential further strengthening of ties between Russia and China. So far, China has been careful in balancing its ideological proximity to Putin’s Russia with its economic ties with Ukraine’s western partners. But at a video summit between Putin and Xi Jinping at the end of December, the Chinese president stressed Beijing’s preparedness to increase its strategic cooperation with Moscow.

Scott Boston, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp., told CNBC on Friday that the Russians "have a whole lot of combat power left and a lot of capacity to scale up the violence, which seems to already be happening. This thing could really drag on for a long time." Yes, Russian forces could try to go on the offensive again, but the likely futility of attacking fortified Ukrainian positions now backed by the threat of NATO firepower would be a strong deterrent. When President Bill Clinton signed that law in 1996, several countries accused the U.S. of violating their sovereignty, passing their own laws to make the U.S. regulation effectively unenforceable. And while we have no right to tell Ukrainians to stop fighting before their country is whole, we also have no right to expect them to keep fighting at any cost. This Swedish Air Force handout image from March 2, 2022, shows Russian fighter jets violating Swedish airspace east of the Swedish Baltic Sea island of Gotland.
Ukraine could be in a strong position to negotiate once it gets back all of its territory, "including most of what it lost in the Donbas in 2014, with special arrangements made for plebiscites," Professor Clarke said. Neither side has been wiling to come to the negotiation table since the beginning of the war, dashing any hopes for an end to the fighting any time soon. Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley has previously suggested there was no military solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and diplomacy was needed to end the war. The eastern city of Bakhmut, the small town of Vuhledar, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia — the gateway to the south — could all be in their sights, the BBC has reported. A possible escalation could involve Russian forces turning the tables on the battlefield and making a push for the south of Ukraine, Professor Clarke said. Mr Putin has already annexed the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia through so-called referendums after pulling back troops to regroup in eastern Ukraine.

Why is the Russian air force not more involved in the war? I rarely see any news regarding Russian strikes from the air. — Matt
A lot of the Ukrainians I've talked to, while they appreciate the Western weapons supplies, say this is their war to fight. Apart from a few exceptions, almost all of the tens of thousands of people who have died in this war have been on Ukrainian territory. The invasion has been a disaster for President Vladimir Putin and in order to justify it at home he at least has to take control of Ukraine's Donbas region, after which he can falsely claim that the army saved Russian citizens persecuted by Ukraine. Wars often do not end predictably, and a failure to achieve hoped-for victories often leads to a sudden change of government. Ukraine appears very dependent on Volodymyr Zelenskiy in terms of its public diplomacy, but he does not direct its military strategy in detail and the country’s desire to fight runs very deep.


More European nations are now talking about the need to step up aid in light of concerns that the US is weakening in its resolve. The military course of this war in 2024 will be determined in Moscow, Kyiv, Washington, Brussels, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang more than in Avdiivka, Tokmak, Kramatorsk or any of the devastated battlefields along the frontlines. Russia lacks the equipment and trained manpower to launch a strategic offensive until spring 2025, at the earliest. It would be wrong to say that the front lines in Ukraine are stalemated, but both sides are capable of fighting each other to a standstill as they each try to take strategic initiatives.

Europe
Germany’s sea change hasn’t just resulted from developments in Ukraine. Many Germans and other Europeans have lacked trust in the United States since then-US President Donald Trump denigrated Germany and the NATO alliance. Despite Biden’s efforts early in his administration to repair this damage, many Germans and Europeans are appalled by the divisions and partisanship they see in US politics. Ukrainian refugees are being welcomed with open arms despite their numbers reaching far beyond the over nine hundred thousand refugees who came to Europe in 2015 to escape the wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Back then, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to admit Syrian refugees split the EU, boosting populists and the radical right. This time around, more unity has suddenly been achieved—with all twenty-seven EU members agreeing to take in Ukrainian refugees for at least one year, with rights to work, housing, and health care.


Moscow accused Kyiv of launching a missile strike on a market in Donetsk city, killing at least 25 people and wounding 20 others, Russian officials said. Ukrainian armed forces operating in the region denied they had carried out the strike, stating that they "did not conduct any combat operations with means of destruction." Over the holiday period, Russia continued its daily attacks against mostly civilian targets in Ukraine. For example, on December 29 a massive barrage of missile strikes and drone attacks hit infrastructure facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa, and government-controlled areas of the contested Donetsk oblast.


Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine is a world-historical event, marking the final act of the post-Cold War period and the start of a new era, yet unwritten. The spectrum of possible outcomes ranges from a volatile new cold or hot war involving the United States, Russia, and China; to a frozen conflict in Ukraine; to a post-Putin settlement in which Russia becomes part of a revised European security architecture. With the West leveling unprecedented sanctions against Russia in record time and the real potential for a descent into nuclear war, we are in uncharted territory. Since https://www.openlearning.com/u/michaelsenbishop-s2dhzs/blog/AYearOnWhatDoYoungRussiansThinkOfTheWarInUkraineRussiaUkraineWarNews01 was launched in June, only a handful of villages have been recaptured. Ukrainian armed forces operating in the region denied they had carried out the strike, stating Sunday that they "did not conduct any combat operations with means of destruction."

When it began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Russia's goal was to take over the country completely. Another possibility is that fighting continues to rage on without any cease-fire or settlement, which, according to Jones, could go on for years. This might then also pave the way for other allies to deliver such weapons to Ukraine. 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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