Notes

Five ways Russias invasion of Ukraine has changed UK government
According to a 2022 YouGov poll, only one in five Britons would volunteer for service in the event of an invasion. Britain has also allowed ammunition supplies to dwindle to “dangerously low levels,” according to a Parliamentary Defence Committee report. Gen Sir Richard Barrons, the former head of the British Joint Forces Command, told the committee that he doubted there were “sufficient munitions to sustain a high-intensity conflict for more than about a week”.


Atlas, a male, and lionesses Luladja and Queen – all three around two years old – arrived early in the day at the Auxois park in Burgundy, eastern France after a journey of nearly 90 hours across Europe. And we look forward to Hungary living up to the commitment it’s made to the United States and to its other allies. The United States is unaware of what is causing the delay by the Hungarian government. The Hungarian leader routinely criticises his western allies and has been nurturing relationships with Moscow and Beijing.

Russia-Ukraine war: Ukraine invites Xi Jinping to participate in peace talks, says Zelenskiy’s adviser – as it happened
Turkey will get 40 new F-16s and upgrades to 79 of the jets in its existing fleet, the state department said in a news release. They engaged Ukrainian troops in 98 combat engagements, and carried out four air strikes and 78 shellings with reactive bullets. Russian forces struck the settlement of Maly Burluk on 17 January with an aerial bomb, Synegubov said. EU leaders are expected to meet again on 1 February to suss out the financial package.


Defence Secretary Ben Wallace branded Russia's actions "naked aggression against a democratic country" and said no one had been fooled by the Kremlin's "false flags and fake narratives". He said the UK's "baffling" decision to hold back sanctions until after Russia's incursion into Ukraine had not deterred Mr Putin. The only airlines still flying from the UK, Wizz Air and Ryanair, have suspended all flights to the country.

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Ambassador Neil Holland condemns Russia's air attacks this week on Kyiv and Kharkiv, as well as the spate of attacks on Ukraine over the past month. After months of delays, Turkey’s parliament approved Sweden’s Nato membership this week. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, signed it off on Thursday, leaving Hungary as the only country in the 31-member alliance that has yet to ratify the Swedish bid. Suspilne reports a policeman was wounded during the morning shelling of Kupiansk. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was not aware any official list had been published.

Ukraine's intelligence service, the SBU, reported on Tuesday it had found and deactivated "two robotic online surveillance cameras" that it says were hacked by Russia to spy on Kyiv's defences and scout out targets. In terms of military aid, the UK has trained 22,000 Ukrainian troops under Operation Orbital since 2015, supporting both Ukraine’s army and navy. If law and order really began to break down, security forces could be authorised to use lethal force against looters; neighbourhood vigilante groups might spring up.
Prior to Russia's invasion, the Foreign Office had seen a decline in its Russia expertise - despite the government having described the country as "the most acute threat to our security" in the Integrated Review. The muted response to Russia’s invasion of the Crimea in 2014 had already shown that, as a former UK ambassador to Moscow and Washington put it, “there was a problem in the Foreign Office; the old Cold War cadre of people just wasn’t there”. The Russian invasion displaced Ukrainians who, fleeing the conflict, became refugees in need of accommodation and support.


Earlier this week, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing head of the British army, said its 74,000-strong ranks need to be bolstered by at least 45,000 reservists and citizens in order to be better readied for possible conflict. Last month, the European Union paid the final instalment of a multibillion-euro support package to Ukraine to help keep its economy afloat. The European Commission has proposed to provide Ukraine with €50bn ($55bn), with 26 of the 27 nation bloc’s leaders endorsing this plan at a summit before that last payout. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is considered to be Putin’s closest ally in the EU. Mr Johnson said the UK and its allies would agree a "massive package of economic sanctions" in a bid to "hobble" the Russian economy, warning that the West would need to cease its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has since advised all UK citizens to leave the country, but it is not known how many remain and the FCDO has declined to comment on numbers. Joe Biden is pressing Congress to embrace a bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with aid for Ukraine. When that failed, No.10 sanctioned five Russian banks and three “hit net wealth” individuals. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace said these troops would be used “first and foremost” to deal with any humanitarian crisis.
A Ukrainian presidential adviser said that more than 40 soldiers had died and dozens more were wounded, but this has not been independently confirmed. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-armoured-vehicles-is-the-uk-sending-to-ukraine.html - which means the military takes control temporarily - has been imposed across the whole of Ukraine and traffic jams built up as people fled the capital city of Kyiv. Mr Johnson was among leaders of the G7 group of wealthy nations who met to discuss the situation. Earlier, the prime minister said on Twitter that the invasion was a "catastrophe for our continent".

Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. It's promising to deploy British forces to eastern European members of the Nato military alliance if Russian troops cross Ukraine's borders. Public buildings and metro stations would be used as air raid shelters, while anti-aircraft guns might be hidden in parks. Ukrainian officials say Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that their own forces shot down a military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian POWs. Russian reliance on large amounts of heavy armour, both tanks and heavy guns, has exposed how vulnerable they are to new forms of military equipment.
Another potential threat could come from anti-war politicians, whom Kremlin propagandists might seek to incite. However, don’t expect to see Jeremy Corbyn being carted off straight away. In extremis, a wartime government could inter anyone deemed a threat to public order or the war effort. The conflict in Ukraine offers a glimpse of how Britain might prepare for self-defence. Checkpoints and pillboxes would be built at motorway junctions and city entrances. Public buildings and metro stations would be used as air raid shelters, while anti-aircraft guns might be hidden in parks.


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