Notes

U S. and Britain reportedly believe the Ukraine war could last 10-20 years, become a Russian quagmire
Russia accused Ukraine immediately after the attack of organising the murder of Tatarsky. He was one of a group of prominent bloggers who have built up large online audiences as cheerleaders for Russia's war in Ukraine, while sometimes criticising its tactics. A young Russian woman was jailed for 27 years on Thursday for delivering a bomb that exploded in the hands of a pro-war military blogger last year and killed him on the spot.

Hein Goemans Well, some people would say yes, because it makes clear that this is a war caused by a commitment problem that no peace deal will stick. I mean, in my opinion, if he gives up Crimea, it will cost him his personal safety, you know, maybe his life, and he may be thrown in jail. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. With Western hesitancy bolstering Russia, and in the absence of either a coup or a health-related issue leading to Putin's demise, the only foreseeable outcome will be a negotiated settlement that for now both sides continue to refuse.
“Russia probably believes that it has the advantage for the time being and is advancing in the Donbas, albeit slowly,” Jamie Shea, a professor of strategy and security at the University of Exeter, told Al Jazeera. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned it could last for years, while Western intelligence agencies have reportedly said Russia’s combat capabilities could be depleted in the coming months. Despite Moscow's "shambolic start to its military campaign, most Western officials and analysts believe Russia will turn to criminal siege tactics and eventually find a way to break through Ukraine's fierce and valiant resistance," Politico's Alex Ward writes. A U.S. official tells CBS News that Russia could tactically seize Kyiv and Ukraine in four to six weeks.

When will it be over? And 9 more questions about Russia, Ukraine and a year of war
As the sun rises on a seventh day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a 40-mile-long Russian military convoy appears stalled about 20 miles north of Kyiv, and the Ukrainian-held cities of Kharkiv, Kherson, and Mariupol are encircled. Russia also intensified its bombing of cities on Tuesday, including in civilian areas. Footage "of the aftermath of a missile strike that hit Kyiv's main TV tower and a nearby Holocaust memorial showed a gruesome scene of blown-out cars and buildings and several bodies on fire," The Washington Post reports.


On Wednesday the country's defence minister, Oleksiy Resnikov, met some 50 countries in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels to ask for more arms and ammunition. Ukrainian replacement troops go through combat training on Feb. 24 in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Many Russian nationalists, though, perceive Ukraine as a breakaway region of greater Russia. 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." There seems to be some degree of sensitivity in Ukraine to Russia's claims it's waging a proxy war with the West over Ukraine.

Ukraine: How might the war end? Five scenarios
And long, exhaustive fighting carries its own risks, according to Benjamin Jensen, a war gaming expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That’s because the longer conflicts last, the more they exhaust finite resources and, hence, the parties are more willing to gamble. As the war enters its second year, the spigot of military aid is still gushing.

"We want peace around the world," 70-year-old Kyiv resident Nina Albul recently told my colleague Hanna Palamarenko, "but we also want the world to know that it's okay for enslaved people to fight back." Mark Temnycky, a Ukrainian-American journalist and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center said that delays in 2023 allowed Russia to fortify positions in the south and east of Ukraine, regroup and re-strategize. The only way I can see Putin use nuclear weapons goes back to this story that I told earlier about the western allies and particularly the people in Germany, who are very, very skittish about nuclear weapons. "The second Il-76 plane was flying next, which was carrying about 80 more prisoners of war; they managed to turn it around," Kartapolov said. Chancellor Olaf Scholz also recently authorized supplying infantry fighting vehicles to help push Russian forces out of occupied Ukraine.
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. Might it be possible this war could spill outside Ukraine's borders?

Weather Alert Issued As 'Pineapple Express' Hurtles Towards US West Coast
I mean, an interesting thing about the regime is, of course, that Putin is the linchpin. And that’s exactly why he designed a system like that, right? So that he would be irreplaceable because he keeps the factions together and the flow of money to the right people. So he’s the linchpin of the regime and the question is, does Putin have the repressive apparatus of a Saddam Hussein who basically killed the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south when he lost the Gulf War? Or is he kind of a regime that cannot fully repress any domestic opposition?

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. "Despite the slow gains in 2023, Ukrainian morale remains high. The majority of the country still believes that they will win the war, and they will not accept any other outcome than the total removal of Russian forces from Ukrainian lands." Ukraine's Defense Ministry said last week that its main goal in 2024 is to boost its domestic defense industry in the face of uncertain future supplies from its Western allies. But, by agreeing to the talks, Putin seems to at least have accepted the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire.
Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones. Ukraine shoots most of these down with its air defense missiles. For Ukraine, the problem is it's running low on these missiles. If it runs out, then Russia could unleash its fighting planes. Now, a collection of Western tank-type vehicles is slated to arrive on the front lines this spring, with training already underway in donor countries.


Refusal can mean a jail sentence, though there is the option of civilian service out of uniform too. A number of European countries also rehearse for civil emergencies - with exercises that involve ordinary citizens as well as the military. Since https://rentry.co/sxeeayam of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and allies like Shoigu have repeatedly stressed the need to keep Ukraine inside Russia's sphere of influence, and to defeat what they describe as Ukraine's "Nazi regime".

Perhaps more likely is that this develops into a protracted war. So one of the basic characteristics of war is that it provides information. "It is obvious that the Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society," he said. And that’s exactly why he designed a system like that, right?
But there is no smooth drop-off — most of them end relatively quickly. Ukrainian military officials have conceded that hopes and expectations of a great breakthrough in the counteroffensive were not met. They predict intense fighting is likely to continue into the next year but say Kyiv's forces are unlikely to launch any more counteroffensives. Russia, meanwhile, is likely to focus on consolidating the territory it has already seized, particularly in eastern Ukraine. A Russian lawmaker suggested that a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war that was shot down over the Belgorod region Wednesday was part of a two-plane convoy en route to a prisoner swap with Ukraine. The Ukrainian leadership knew very well that, according to established practice, today Ukrainian military personnel would be transported by military transport aircraft to the Belgorod airfield for exchange.


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