Notes

How a Russian invasion of Ukraine could spill over into Europe
President Putin declares victory and withdraws some forces, leaving enough behind to maintain some control. Under Article 5 of the military alliance's charter, an attack on one member is an attack on all. But Mr Putin might take the risk if he felt it was the only way of saving his leadership. If he was, perhaps, facing defeat in Ukraine, he might be tempted to escalate further. We now know the Russian leader is willing to break long-standing international norms.

Russia’s invasion has the potential to set up a clash of nuclear world powers. As we look ahead to several more months of war, experts have told Sky News the "pendulum is beginning to swing towards Ukraine". While Covid was a useful exercise in Armageddon planning, 21st-century Britain is arguably less ready for actual warfare than it was even 30 years ago. He urged Ukrainian soldiers in the combat zone to lay down their weapons and go home, but said clashes were inevitable and "only a question of time". The size of its active armed forces is only 19,000 personnel, but it can call on another 238,000 reserves.
President Biden's virtual meeting with President Putin earlier this week was a start and will be followed up by more talks with other Nato members. While the official said it was hard to say these were all strategically related, it showed that there was an issue on Eastern Europe's eastern flank. "Added to that are the recent border crisis involving thousands of migrants in Belarus, as well as Russia's backing of separatists in the Caucasus and elsewhere," he said. The war that erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014 has already left 14,000 dead and an estimated 1.4 million displaced.

The roots of the current crisis grew from the breakup of the Soviet Union
Russia wants assurances that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato; that Nato members will have no permanent forces or infrastructure based in Ukraine; and for a halt to military exercises near Russia's border. The intelligence official described the build-up as a "slow drip" and a "slow ratcheting up of pressure". The US' "chaotic" withdrawal from Afghanistan, new leaders of Germany and the UK, and pressure for France's president all meant Putin thought there was no "capable Western leadership" to oppose Russian aggression, he said. This is despite Ukraine having a Jewish president in Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and there being no evidence the country's leadership is controlled by Nazis.


But the country is the fourth largest recipient of military funding from the US, and the intelligence cooperation between the two countries has deepened in response to threats from Russia. But the very premise of a post-Soviet Europe is also helping to fuel today’s conflict. Putin has been fixated on reclaiming some semblance of empire, lost with the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin has said Ukrainians and Russians “were one people — a single whole,” or at least would be if not for the meddling from outside forces (as in, the West) that has created a “wall” between the two. Some preeminent American foreign policy thinkers argued at the end of the Cold War that NATO never should have moved close to Russia’s borders in the first place. But NATO’s open-door policy says sovereign countries can choose their own security alliances.

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A senior European Union official has denied member states are discussing financial coercion to force Hungary to agree on financing for Ukraine. Kara-Murza, who suffers from a nerve disorder after surviving two poison attacks, was jailed for 25 years last April for treason and spreading "false information" about the Russian war in Ukraine. Defense experts say it's unlikely the counteroffensive will see any breakthroughs this year.


The leaders of Ukraine and Russia struck a defiant tone at end-of-year press conferences and vowed to reach their military goals as the war heads toward its third year, Pjotr Sauer reported. “I wanted to jail him,” Oleksandr Prokudin, Kherson’s police chief at the time and now the city’s governor, told Tom Burgis as he sat in the basement he uses for meetings since the Russians blew the roof off his office. The wealthy Ukrainian in his 50s had done a stint in the national parliament and won three terms as the mayor of the southern city of Kherson, but at the start of 2022 police had opened a case against him for ordering a contract killing. US President Joe Biden has ruled out sending troops even to shepherd American citizens out of Ukraine because he said if Russians and Americans end up fighting that would be World War III. The conflict is likely to remain confined to Ukraine and Russia in terms of actual fighting.


If we took casualties at the rate the Ukrainians are taking them, the NHS would immediately be overwhelmed, and for years we’ve missed recruitment targets for the Armed Forces. He points out that our digital networks are mainly cellular in structure, making it almost impossible to wipe them all at once. Even during the London Blitz in 1941, nearly 5,000 looting cases came before the Old Bailey.

At the start of 2023, hopes were high that a much-vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive — expected to be launched in the spring — would change the dial in the war against Russia. Maybe it takes longer for Russian forces to secure cities like Kyiv whose defenders fight from street to street. “If that continues, we will all eventually lose interest in saving the system. It was yet another indication that hardware was being beefed up around the strategic Black Sea, where Russia, Ukraine and three NATO allies have bases. "There is a risk for a full-fledged invasion," warned Mr Stoltenberg, but he added other threats were lurking too, "including attempts to topple the government in Kyiv." Explosions thundered in the dim light before dawn, minutes after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia cynically declared the start of a “special military operation” to “demilitarize” Ukraine but not occupy the country.
"Simply put, we continue to see very troubling signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border. And as we said before, we're in a window when an invasion could begin at any time," Mr Blinken said. In a demonstration of American commitment to NATO allies, the Pentagon is sending 3,000 more combat troops to Poland to join 1,700 already assembling there, a senior US defence official said. The official provided the information under ground rules set by the Pentagon. Russia is also massively boosting military spending in 2024, with almost 30% of its fiscal expenditure to be directed toward the armed forces.


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. Mr Sullivan said Western leaders were completely united and would respond harshly to a Russian invasion with devastating economic and trade sanctions. "There is a risk for a full-fledged invasion," warned Mr Stoltenberg, but he added other threats were lurking too, "including attempts to topple the government in Kyiv." "From here in the Black Sea region, all the way to the Baltic, allies are stepping up to reinforce NATO's presence at this critical time," NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said from Constanta. But diplomats and government leaders have struggled to jump-start moribund talks to stave off war.

The US alleged Putin has in fact added more troops since that pronouncement, and on Friday US President Joe Biden told reporters that he’s “convinced” that Russia had decided to invade Ukraine in the coming days or weeks. The UK's defence secretary has also warned that we need to be prepared for a war. No country can join the alliance without the unanimous buy-in of all 30 member countries, and many have opposed Ukraine’s membership, in part because it doesn’t meet the conditions on democracy and rule of law. On 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered his army to forcefully cross the border and invade neighbouring Ukraine. Russia's defence ministry has denied attacking Ukrainian cities - saying it was targeting military infrastructure, air defence and air forces with "high-precision weapons".
“If that continues, we will all eventually lose interest in saving the system. Artem is one of at least 4,500 Ukrainian servicemen and women believed to be in captivity in Russia as prisoners of war. Their families are often deprived of even elementary information about their location and wellbeing. Artem, 31, was a member of Ukraine’s Azov regiment and was taken prisoner at the end of the siege of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol last May. It was only in March this year that Russia officially confirmed to the Red Cross that Artem was being held prisoner there; Natalia has heard nothing since and had no news from him directly.


There have also been reports of troops landing by sea at the Black Sea port cities of Mariupol and Odesa in the south. Russian military convoys have crossed from Belarus into Ukraine's northern Chernihiv region, and from Russia into the Sumy region, which is also in the north, Ukraine's border guard service (DPSU) said. There are reports of attacks on Ukrainian military infrastructure across the country, and Russian convoys entering from all directions. At https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-doesnt-ukraine-bomb-russia.html , we believe that clarity is power, and that power shouldn’t only be available to those who can afford to pay. Millions rely on Vox’s clear, high-quality journalism to understand the forces shaping today’s world.

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