Notes

Ukraine series: how long will the war last?
One concern is it could yet extend to other post-Soviet countries such as Moldova and Georgia, both of which, like Ukraine, have Russian-backed breakaway regions within their respective territories. The other, perhaps greater, risk is that Russian aggression could spread even farther afield, to the Baltics, which would not only draw NATO into a potential conflict, but also fundamentally threaten the post–Cold War order. 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. Just ask Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose improbable assassination in Sarajevo sparked World War I.


Volker said that aid packages must include more advanced weaponry for Ukraine, however, like F-16 fighter jets which have been pledged by Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. "Russia can win the war, or the Ukrainians can win the war. And, as you're seeing things now, if you really think about it, what has been achieved this year? Very little has been achieved by Russia, and you can say the same thing for the Ukrainians," he said. It didn't, and the prospect of a breakthrough in 2024 is also unlikely, military experts and defense analysts told CNBC. 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.

War in Ukraine
Ukrainian forces have adopted a more defensive stance as circumstances dictate; a senior army general warned last week that front-line Ukrainian troops face artillery shortages and have scaled back some military operations because of a shortfall of foreign assistance. Weather conditions are deteriorating in Ukraine, with mud, freezing rain, snow and ice making offensive and reconnaissance operations challenging. Intense fighting continues nonetheless, and particularly around Bakhmut and Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces are conducting offensive operations and have made some recent, confirmed advances. Hein Goemans Going back to the analogy of the first world war one more time, what really changed attitudes in Germany was the collapse of Bulgaria and Austro-Hungary suing for peace.


Maybe Russia cannot provide enough troops to cover such a vast country. Ukraine's defensive forces transform into an effective insurgency, well-motivated and supported by local populations. And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents. “Either Ukraine keeps fighting with sustained Western support and eventually forces Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine entirely, with the possible exception of Crimea,” he said, referring to the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. He noted, however that this would pre-suppose a Russian military collapse and a change in the country’s leadership – something that could take “a long time to achieve and would necessitate considerably greater military capabilities” than Ukraine currently possesses.

Escaping the military
This Swedish Air Force handout image from March 2, 2022, shows Russian fighter jets violating Swedish airspace east of the Swedish Baltic Sea island of Gotland. Ukraine's air defenses have been surprisingly effective against Russia's air force. This is a grinding trench and artillery war of attrition. The invasion has been a disaster for President Vladimir Putin and in order to justify it at home he at least has to take control of Ukraine's Donbas region, after which he can falsely claim that the army saved Russian citizens persecuted by Ukraine.

Russian forces continued to surround and attack Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and the second-biggest city of Kharkiv. Putin illegally annexed four territories from Ukraine in September and now presents Ukraine's efforts — backed by the West — to take back its own territory as a fascist attack on the Russian homeland. 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. Do they think that Putin, after he has been successful and shown that he’s been a great leader, and he won against the mighty Nato alliance and all this force, that he’s gonna stop?
Russian officials often criticise Nato military support for Ukraine and in an interview last week with the BBC the country's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, cited the prospect of Ukraine joining the Western alliance as a reason for the invasion in the first place. While Ukraine’s location has afforded it outsize attention relative to other conflicts, it’s also what makes the prospect of a drawn-out war even more likely. Ukraine, after all, is situated at the doorstep of the European Union and NATO, both of which have a vested interest in ensuring that the country’s sovereignty is maintained and that Russia’s aggression is curtailed. The longer the Russian invasion continues, the greater the refugee crisis that Europe is likely to face, and the riskier the situation becomes for NATO, which has gone to great lengths to avoid being drawn into direct conflict with Russian troops.

When will Ukraine war end? How Putin could be stopped and timeline of Russia’s invasion
There can be secessionist movements in the administrative units in Russia, or it can be a long kind of peaceful stalemate or ceasefire along the 1991 border where there’s occasionally shots fired, but no dramatic incursions and no dramatic battles. It’s heartbreaking to say, but it’s just bleak, Gideon. https://ambitious-camel-g3r4ks.mystrikingly.com/blog/russia-invades-ukraine-what-will-happen-now-vladimir-putin-has-chosen of thousands of people are gonna die and for really no good reason. I mean, there is a deal available, but Russia can’t take it.


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