Notes

Ukraine: what will end the war? Heres what research says
Russian and Ukrainian forces have essentially been locked in a slow, grinding fight since November, particularly around the gateway to the north and central parts of Luhansk, as the war shifted into positional warfare. In a two-hour address on Tuesday night, Vladimir Putin gave no indication the war would end any time soon, promising to continue Russia's offensive against its neighbour "step by step". Such a settlement would almost certainly trigger an ongoing arms race. Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. Blumenthal has joined other lawmakers — particularly pro-Ukraine Republicans — in pushing President Joe Biden to give Zelenskyy most of the weapons he requested, including long-range ATACMS missiles and F-16 fighter aircraft. The United States, as Ukraine’s most important military supporter, remains the center of gravity when it comes to an eventual outcome for the conflict.

In recent wars, such as in Afghanistan, the U.S. had managed to get the wounded-to-killed ratio as high as ten to one, meaning that fewer soldiers were dying after being wounded. 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. Ukraine, Jensen suggested, might try a spectacular special operation to assassinate a Kremlin official, or Russia could decide to use — or simply test — nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Indian thinktank Observer Research Foundation's Russia expert, Nandan Unnikrishnan, said India was unlikely to sign "any major military deal" with Russia because it would cross a red line with the US.
Ukraine is a democratic country aggressively pursuing European integration. This means that the willingness of the general population to suffer in the face of high costs is of the utmost importance. Second, the two sides might not trust that an agreement made today will be honoured tomorrow. Finally, countries might not be able to settle the contentious issue, especially when ethnic, religious or ideological tensions are involved.

Donald Trump Reacts to US Troops Killed by Iran-Backed Militants
For now, Volodymyr Zelenskyy maintains he will continue to fight to the bitter end. Russia could make a push for more land or the flow of weapons to Kyiv could be halted, bringing forward a stalemate. Ask any analyst or observer how they think the war in Ukraine will play out, and they'll tell you their guess is only as good as the next offensive.

“This war will last indefinitely, with long pauses for cease-fires,” he said. The overall effect means Finland can muster one of Europe's largest armies. More than that, it will do much to convince the world—and many Russians—that the United States and its allies are doing what they can to create a more stable world. But, by agreeing to the talks, Putin seems to at least have accepted the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.
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. This week, Mr Putin put his nuclear forces on a higher level of alert. But it was a reminder that Russian doctrine allows for the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. However, laying the groundwork for a serious effort to negotiate real peace offers at least some chance of changing Russian and Ukrainian positions over time. In practical terms, neither outcome would produce a stable peace or form of conflict resolution.

Putin's commitment
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. The EU's decision to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova is more than just symbolic. It implicitly means continued backing for Kyiv, as a future in the EU for Ukraine would be impossible with a full-blown victory for Russia.


Offering Russia a positive exit strategy seems better than simply hoping for total victory. A war where both sides fight to the point of exhaustion might be no better. The alternative would be a ceasefire along some line based on the progress of the fighting to date, where both sides would agree to stop fighting but remain deployed. Historically, this kind of cessation of hostilities would have to be secured by creating some kind of security zone along the ceasefire line, and possibly the Belarus-Ukraine border as well—if the war had not already expanded to include Belarus.


The theorists’ predictions for what would happen next depended, in part, on how they evaluated the variables. Would the Russian front in the Donbas really collapse, and, if so, how soon? If https://squareblogs.net/racingden14/ukraine-conflict-simple-visual-guide-to-the-russian-invasion did collapse, how much of the information about it would the Kremlin be able to control? Dan Reiter, for example, was slightly more sanguine than Goemans about Putin’s ability to sell a partial victory to the Russian people, because of his mastery of the Russian media. To Reiter, Putin was enough of a dictator that he would be able to back off. Adding a democratic Ukraine in NATO would mark the utter and permanent defeat of Putin’s crusade to absorb it into a Russian empire.


And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place. He judges that continuing the war may be a greater threat to his leadership than the humiliation of ending it. China intervenes, putting pressure on Moscow to compromise, warning that it will not buy Russian oil and gas unless it de-escalates. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities see the continuing destruction of their country and conclude that political compromise might be better than such devastating loss of life.


Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didn’t yield the immediate results for which experts hoped. Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all. “This war will last indefinitely, with long pauses for cease-fires,” he said. At the same time, election season in the United States — Ukraine’s most important backer — stands to spur arguments that a war in Europe of unknown duration is a costly nuisance for America. But Biden and other Western leaders should tell them that this is an option they will have if their counteroffensive is still grinding on next year.

If there has not been any progress then at least he should take stock. The Biden administration has said the war must end before Ukraine can join NATO, because it does not want to risk direct U.S. involvement. European states also face even more challenges in dealing with the costs of the war than the United States, and at least as much popular and domestic political resistance to aiding Ukraine and rebuilding the real-world security structure of NATO. Some Ukrainian officials acknowledged the fear that gives Western leaders sleepless nights, that a public collapse of President Putin's regime might lead to real danger as his would-be successors jockey for power in a state with the world's biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons. “Branislav is very worried,” Goemans told me, “and he is not a scaredy-cat.” Goemans was also worried, though his hypothetical time line was more extended. As a result, Russia essentially stopped flying fighter jets over Ukraine.
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. As painful as it is to make compromises in a negotiated settlement, Mr Cancian says Kyiv and Moscow may one day decide peace is the only way forward. "[Russia is] facing three or four generations, 60 or 80 years, of guerilla war, because they're up against a population of 44 million people who are now completely and utterly Ukrainian men," Professor Clarke said.

It repelled early Russian lunges to seize Ukraine's three largest cities—Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa. In Sweden and Norway, conscription is partial - not everyone gets drafted. It does not show that such aid must be part of a continuing plan, call for public support of a coherent effort, or communication to Russia that it cannot outlast the aid effort if it keeps fighting.
Website: https://squareblogs.net/racingden14/ukraine-conflict-simple-visual-guide-to-the-russian-invasion