Notes

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Hungary signals 'major shift' in Ukraine funding stance; Russia claims it has taken control of Kharkiv village
For now, Volodymyr Zelenskyy maintains he will continue to fight to the bitter end. Ukraine's resistance and willingness to fight remains strong, but — if there is a Russian offensive on the horizon as some are predicting — their fortitude will once again be put to the test. Russia could make a push for more land or the flow of weapons to Kyiv could be halted, bringing forward a stalemate. With so much of Ukraine's fate still uncertain, analysts say all outcomes remain possible. 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. "Leaving Ukraine [is] done with a heavy heart," she said as she packed her bags and prepared for a long drive to the border with her husband.

"Over these five-day periods the number of military vehicle losses by Russia increased by 88% and the number of Russian tank losses increased by 95%. The number of Russian casualties over the same period also increased by 15%," the ministry noted. International, professional experts on peace mediation could and should be involved in the Russia-Ukraine talks, whether formally or informally. Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones.
Russian energy company Novatek is likely to resume large-scale operations at its Ust-Luga processing complex and Baltic Sea terminal within weeks, following a suspected drone attack seen disrupting naphtha flows to Asia, analysts said on Monday. Thanking the diaspora for its support, including those who had come to fight for Ukraine, Zelenskiy said the words "I am Ukrainian" carried a special meaning, and hailed the "indomitability of our people." Denis Pushilin, head of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic, told the Rossiya-24 news channel that 27 people have now died in the strike, and 26 are injured, news agency RIA Novosti said, reporting his comments. Russia and Ukraine traded retaliatory strikes over the weekend after another Russian oil terminal was attacked on Sunday, as were the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk and nine Ukrainian regions. Since the conflict broke out in 2014, Ukraine has had no access to that part of its border and Kyiv accuses Moscow of using it to send Russian troops and equipment to support separatist forces.

Ukraine targets a key Crimean city after striking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters
"Over these five-day periods the number of military vehicle losses by Russia increased by 88% and the number of Russian tank losses increased by 95%. The number of Russian casualties over the same period also increased by 15%," the ministry noted. Data from the Ukrainian General Staff compared the period of January with the previous five-day period. It showed a trend of increased losses for Russia as offensive activity ticked up. "We mourn those who died at the hands of Ukrainian terrorists as a result of yesterday's shelling," he said. Both Russia and Ukraine deny the deliberate targeting of civilians, although thousands have died in missile and drone strikes over the last two years of war. The tightening of supply from Russia, following fears of disruption in European naphtha exports to Asia from Yemeni Houthis' attacks on ships in the Red Sea, are driving up naphtha prices and refining margins in Asia.

Few can predict the future with confidence, but here are some potential outcomes. Describing 60 clashes yesterday, Zelenskyy said the most intense fighting was in the Avdiivka area, as well as in Bakhmut, Maryinka and Kupiansk. "There have been more than 50 Russian shelling incidents just from multiple rocket launcher systems, and also dozens of airstrikes and missile strikes," he said. Russian offensive activity is increasing in intensity, data collected by Ukraine's armed forces in mid-January confirms, Britain's Ministry of Defense said Sunday.


Russia has begun a large-scale military attack on Ukraine, its southern neighbour, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. There is a tendency to confuse Western consensus with global consensus, but we should face the reality of a multipolar world. This nascent grouping may evolve into a new nonaligned bloc or network, further fragmenting the global system. Moreover, many of these nations have economic or arms-supply ties to Russia and major trade and investment ties to China. If past is prologue, they are likely to play the West and a Sino-Russian pole against each other for advantage, depending on the issue. The crisis over Ukraine has presented the United States with a complex brew of challenges and opportunities.

Russian retreat, Ukrainian victory
Ukrainian replacement troops go through combat training on Feb. 24 in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Shortly before Russia invaded last February, less than a third of Ukrainians supported foreign boots on the ground in Ukraine. 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 is assembling a force of more than 100 western Leopard 1 and 2 tanks, plus others, and a similar number of armoured vehicles that it hopes to use whenever the spring muddy season eases, to smash through Russia’s defensive lines in a D-day offensive. 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. At this point, Russia could call for a ceasefire to retain what it has, and run a defensive campaign to consolidate its battered military. https://diigo.com/0v8ahc reaches the one-year mark with no immediate end in sight.


So a more likely end point here is not a negotiated peace, but rather a conflict that consolidates around lines of control. “You end up with something between a frozen conflict and an everlasting war, in which neither side has the energy or economy to win,” Nixey said. The hope is that such a display of military strength might then force Russia to the negotiating table, but Vladimir Putin’s bellicose speech this week hardly suggests a leader willing to compromise soon. In reality, if Ukraine is going to force Russia from all its occupied territory, it is likely to take several more offensives, many months at least, and a dramatic change in Kremlin thinking. Ukrainian armed forces operating in the region denied they had carried out the strike, stating that they "did not conduct any combat operations with means of destruction." The Russian side has not responded to the BBC's queries but earlier this year Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned there would be "slaughter" if Ukraine were allowed to regain control of eastern Ukraine, including the border, before local elections were held.


Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones. But Ukraine's air defenses were surprisingly effective, shooting down many Russian fighter jets and helicopters in the first couple months of the war. Still, it’s an open question whether the U.S. will be able to indefinitely continue its current level of support, said Mark Cancian, a CSIS senior adviser who has studied the volumes of artillery used in the war. These scenarios are not mutually exclusive - some of each could combine to produce different outcomes. And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place. Russian forces may try to push again along the entire front, at least to secure all of the Donbas region.


"That would probably not be an end, though, that would be the state of active warfare declining, at least temporarily, and it becomes something closer to a frozen conflict that can heat up or cool down depending on the range of factors," he said. Not only have the Ukrainian defenders fended off a total conquest from Russia, they have also retaken parts of the country by launching well-organized, audacious counter-offensives in the east and south. It's perhaps the only thing more complicated than sanctions enforcement, and this question touches on both.

Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK. If the West remains united with Ukraine, it could make the costs of the war so insurmountable for Russia that it breaks the level of commitment of its political elite. 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. Several other Russian oil terminals have been targeted in recent days, in the Bryansk and Leningrad regions. "They understand the wider strategic point, which is that this is a confrontation between the West and Russia and at stake is not just the future territorial integrity of Ukraine but the security construct for Europe and the West with Russia," he noted. Most importantly, Germany, having discarded its pacifist posture, is now re-militarizing as its assumptions crumble about Russia’s intentions and the power of economic ties to reshape geopolitics.
There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine. The Russian air force - which has played a low-key role so far - launches devastating airstrikes. Massive cyber-attacks sweep across Ukraine, targeting key national infrastructure. President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile. President Putin declares victory and withdraws some forces, leaving enough behind to maintain some control.

Such a situation, where a separate country or politician assumes the role of go-between, has worked to bring some past wars to an end. This led to the adoption of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which ended a longstanding war. But Ukraine's air defenses were surprisingly effective, shooting down many Russian fighter jets and helicopters in the first couple months of the war.
"But if Central/Eastern Europe felt abandoned by those powers, it's not hard to imagine a Polish or even a Ukrainian nuclear programme." "The United States maintains by far the world's most powerful nuclear stockpile, but with the US out of the mix, the French and British, with their much smaller arsenals, would be Europe’s only nuclear deterrent," Mr OBrien says. He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources".

Emory University’s Reiter listed two main reasons for the lack of appetite in Ukraine for any negotiations that would mean accepting the loss of territory. However, if the war were to drag on this year and into next year, the reasoning could change. US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War said it had seen continued reports that Russia had not been able to produce missiles and artillery ammunition at pre-war levels for its own forces to use - making it unlikely to be able to export arms at pre-war levels. "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." There remains speculation that the Kremlin will seek a fresh mobilisation, and another worry is that Beijing may start covertly supplying Russia.
The U.S. Congress approved four separate spending bills for Ukraine in the past year totaling $112 billion. The rest is funding the Ukrainian government (this helps pay the salaries of Ukrainian government workers) and humanitarian aid to help the millions of Ukrainians who have been driven from their homes. As such, many Ukrainians are against the war, with "no war" becoming a common slogan. But polls show that does not equal pacifism, with the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians supporting a prolonged defensive war. Those who spoke foreign languages, especially English, have had even more job options.

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