Notes

When will the war in Ukraine end? And 9 more questions about Russia's invasion : NPR
On 25 March, Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy, head of main operations in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, seemed to announce a change of strategy along these lines, publicly disclaiming any interest in storming the main Ukrainian cities. Is the Kremlin trying to prepare Russian public opinion for failure? The stalemate in Ukraine would come to resemble the stalemate in the Donbas, only on a much larger scale. Ultimately, it appears that this war will not end quickly, as it will take a considerable amount of time for either side to make the other give up.


Would the repetition of the Mariupol tragedy in other Ukrainian cities make a frozen conflict more or less likely? The continued success of the Ukrainian army might damage the confidence of the Russian forces to challenge the state of affairs, while Ukraine would feel obliged to prevent a new wave of civilian deaths. The most likely scenario is a stalemate where both sides accept the facts on the ground, more or less as they exist today. Russia will shift towards a more defensive posture, abandoning its dreams of a swift conquest of the Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv.

Putin ousted
"We are in for a very long fight, this is not going to be short, this is not only going to be about Ukraine. ... This is probably the biggest challenge that we are seeing in Europe since World War II," he said. "The world has changed. There is no going back … we are in an entirely new era," he said. But Bremmer believes that Putin still perceives this kind of help "as acts of war taken by the United States and NATO allies against Russia, meriting retaliation." Other analysts warn of a "quagmire" — where there is no easy solution for what would likely be a heavily destroyed Ukraine, or for Russia — if an insurgency continued long term. "Ukrainians will resist long and hard even if the formal military battles end. And news 24/7 and the internet will expose Putin's brutality for all to see."

Many analysts fear war in Ukraine could potentially spill over into other European countries. The fierce determination of the Ukrainian people up to this point suggests that this will not occur any time soon. 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. Most analysts doubt this means their use is likely or imminent. It means that some of the population will have had some military training - and can then be assigned to reserve units should war break out.
No one can know for sure whether Europe and the United States are headed for a recession, but many economists and business leaders consider it likely. They’ve just begun to feel the economic blowback from the war and the sanctions imposed on Russia, pain that will only increase. While those sanctions have indeed hurt Russia, they’ve also contributed to skyrocketing energy and food prices in the West (even as Putin profits by selling his oil, gas, and coal at higher prices). The US inflation rate, at 8.6 percent last month, is the highest in 40 years, while the Congressional Budget Office has revised estimates of economic growth—3.1 percent this year— down to 2.2 percent for 2023 and 1.5 percent for 2024. All this as mid-term elections loom and President Biden’s approval ratings, now at 39.7 percent, continue to sink.

Do you think that we will eventually take action against countries that purchase oil and other products from Russia? — Harris
The United Kingdom will stand with Ukraine today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes. I look forward to working with you and your team over this trimester and note the rich programme of Security Dialogue topics that will be discussed during this period. Sadly, however, the overwhelming concern of this Forum remains Russia’s ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion of its sovereign neighbour has contravened international law and the underlying principles of this organisation.

The U.S. Congress approved four separate spending bills for Ukraine in the past year totaling $112 billion. That’s changed, with Germany now pledging to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks and approving other countries’ requests to follow suit. Mykhailo Podolyak, another close adviser to President Zelensky, agreed there were "several groups of people who want to take power in Russia". The United Kingdom will stand with Ukraine today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes. Like Stalin’s invasion of Finland in the Winter War of 1939, the Russian army is bogged down and bloodied by a much smaller, outgunned enemy.
This includes overwhelming domestic support for joining NATO and the European Union, despite both blocs expressing hesitation to Ukraine's membership for decades preceding the war. Shortly before Russia invaded last February, less than a third of Ukrainians supported foreign boots on the ground in Ukraine. Conversely, that roughly tracks with the results of an Ipsos poll from January, which found about 7 in 10 people in Western countries think they should "avoid getting involved militarily" in Ukraine, while also "supporting sovereign countries when they are attacked by other countries." https://etextpad.com/ could lead Russia to scale back, maybe even recognize this was a bad idea, perhaps going all the way out of the country or at least going back to the eastern provinces. The most likely end to the violence will not be an end to the war at all, but a ceasefire, says Greene. When the war in Ukraine first began, the fall of Kyiv, and the Ukrainian state more broadly, seemed highly likely.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 703
Carl-Oskar Bohlin asked the public "have you considered whether you have time to join a voluntary defence organisation? If not - get moving!" His remarks were backed up by the country's top military commander, who said Sweden should prepare itself mentally. Last week, another senior Nato military chief said countries needed to be on alert "and expect the unexpected". Adm Rob Bauer, who heads the alliance's military committee, said the public needed to change their mindset for an era "when anything can happen at any time". Wars require the tacit approval and support of those on the home front. Regardless of a country’s government style, a leader is still dependent upon the support of a group of people, or coalition, to stay in power. Vladimir Putin depends on oligarchs, the Russian mafia and the military for his survival.


Talk of wider war in Europe and the potential need for mass mobilisation or a "citizen army" may sound alarming. But the head of the British Army Gen Sir Patrick Sanders is not alone in issuing a national call to prepare for a major conflict on European soil. These achievements are demonstrative of what can be accomplished when illegal aggressive actions are confronted. This situation is a far cry from Putin’s assertion that Russia’s subjugation of Ukraine would be accomplished within a matter of days and, almost two years on from the full scale invasion, Russia is now diplomatically diminished, aligning with North Korea and Iran. Balazs Orban, chief political aide to the prime minister, said Hungary sent a proposal to the EU over the weekend showing it was open to using the budget for the aid package if other "caveats" were added. "Putin," said a senior British military source on Tuesday, "is not about to attack Nato. He just wants to turn Ukraine into a vassal state like Belarus."

Russia wants Nato to make a legally binding promise that Ukraine will never become a member. One reason that countries such as Germany have been reluctant to send heavier weapons to the Ukrainians is that Berlin does not want to give Putin any pretext for escalation. While some Western governments will secretly balk at the ongoing costs of supporting Ukraine (the U.S. has already pledged over $40 billion in security assistance to Kyiv) many understand the high stakes, Barrons said. The U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said last week that he saw no signs that the Russian government was engaging in good-faith efforts to end the war, a day after France’s counterpart expressed similar skepticism. Some Ukrainian experts fear a pincer movement to encircle Donbas and the east from Sumy in the north and Velyka Novosilka in the south, allowing Russia to occupy most of the four Ukrainian provinces it has unilaterally claimed to have annexed. That said, there wasn't much of a political will for third countries to sanction Cuba at the time.
Putin could respond to any Ukrainian efforts to claw back lost lands with air and missile strikes. An April estimate of the cost of rebuilding Ukraine ranged from $500 billion to $1 trillion, far beyond Kyiv’s means. Yet the campaign to conquer key cities—Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv—failed disastrously.


Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day". While he said such an attack is unlikely now, "our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible". There is nothing ‘normal’ in this reality; everyday innocent Ukrainian lives are lost as a consequence of Russia’s war of choice. Russia has continued to terrorise the Ukrainian civilian population, exemplified in its missile and drone attacks which struck residential areas in Kyiv and Kharkiv yesterday.


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