Notes

How Russia Attacked Ukraine and What Happens Next The New York Times
Many are now trying to escape the country, with UN estimates suggesting over 100,000 people have already fled from their homes. President Putin this month recognised the two regions held by the Russian-backed separatists as independent states and ordered Russian troops there, tearing up a peace deal. Much of the fighting appears to be centred around the east of the country. But clashes have also been taking place around Kyiv and the Black Sea port cities of Odesa and Mariupol. The Russian offensive was preceded by artillery fire and there were injuries to border guards, the DPSU said. Tanks and troops have poured into Ukraine at points along its eastern, southern and northern borders, Ukraine says.


Before Finland joined NATO earlier this year, no new countries had joined the alliance since 2004, and even then it was "pretty tiny countries" — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — Taylor noted. He added that without Ukraine's Donbas region, "Russia would not have been a great power at the end of the 19th and into the early years of the 20th century." Thomas Graham, cofounder of Yale University's Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies program, said Ukraine has been important to the "Russian political imagination for decades, if not centuries."

Russia-Ukraine crisis: How likely is it to escalate into broader war?
One is to take back Kupiansk, the gateway to Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv. Another is to capture the salient town of Avdiivka, not far from the occupied regional capital of Donetsk. In the process it has lost spectacular numbers of troops, tanks and equipment.


Putin believed that in Zelenskyy "he had someone he could manipulate in Ukraine," Hall said. According to Graham, there is no evidence that Putin was under public pressure to invade Ukraine, which suggests at least some of his reasoning was personal. The experts said the key to understanding Russia's repeated claim of Ukrainian Nazis is that they use the term differently to the West.

The increasingly complicated Russia-Ukraine crisis, explained
Winter fast approaching and the global economic strain of the war will both add to the pressures on Ukrainian forces, he adds. "If Western support continues, if the Russians are still struggling to recruit troops, and if Ukraine can successfully switch from defence to attack." Over the past six months, Russia has gone from a Blitzkrieg-style offensive targeting Kyiv to focusing on the eastern Donbas and southern cities of Mariupol and Kherson. But a Ukrainian victory is dependent on numerous key factors, including how long the West is prepared to provide support and whether troops can make enough gains before winter sets in.

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. It also doesn’t eliminate the possibility that Russia and the US will be stuck in this standoff for months longer, with Ukraine caught in the middle and under sustained threat from Russia. One ex senior minister suggested to me that there was a generational divide between those who had lived with the threat of the Cold War era, and those who had not. Late last year, the White House started intensifying its diplomatic efforts with Russia. Luke March, professor of post-soviet and comparative politics at the University of Edinburgh, says this means the Kremlin needs to "claim some sort of victory" in the coming weeks and months.
That, though, is partly because Ukraine had already learnt from previous Russian cyberattacks over the past decade. Another potential threat could come from anti-war politicians, whom Kremlin propagandists might seek to incite. However, don’t expect to see Jeremy Corbyn being carted off straight away.


This would put the "largest and most combat-effective friendly military on the European continent" at the forefront of NATO's defence, according to the thinktank. Best of all, the ISW says, would be supporting Ukraine to victory and then helping it rebuild. The ISW argues NATO's military potential is much greater than that of Russia - even if it fully absorbs Ukraine and Belarus.


It also doesn’t eliminate the possibility that Russia and the US will be stuck in this standoff for months longer, with Ukraine caught in the middle and under sustained threat from Russia. https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-did-boris-johnson-travel-to-ukraine.html , the toughest sanctions the Biden administration is reportedly considering are some level of financial sanctions on Russia’s biggest banks — a step the Obama administration didn’t take in 2014 — and an export ban on advanced technologies. Penalties on Russian oligarchs and others close to the regime are likely also on the table, as are some other forms of targeted sanctions.

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. Key bridges could be dynamited, airport runways blocked, and beaches sown with landmines. They are feeling distinctly nervous that Russian forces might not stop at Ukraine and instead use some pretext to "come to the aid" of the ethnic Russian minorities in the Baltics and invade. There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine. Talk of wider war in Europe and the potential need for mass mobilisation or a "citizen army" may sound alarming.
My Website: https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-did-boris-johnson-travel-to-ukraine.html