Notes

Most Russians say they support the military, according to this pollster : NPR
For one thing the mobilisation was announced too late, when Russian troops were already being defeated by Ukrainian ones. For another, it has exposed how the centralised administrative machinery, built by Mr Putin, struggles in an emergency. That is because it is built on corruption and sycophancy, not competence. And as Russia's war in Ukraine continues, the U.S. and other Western allies are hitting it with more economic sanctions.

But as time passed, I got used to it, no matter how terrible it was. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. Ukrainian agricultural exports surged in December after it successfully forced Russia out of the western half of the Black Sea, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said. At the same time, there are several potential arguments why the results from the early polls should be treated with great caution – or perhaps even discounted as meaningful. Sometimes I can’t help but try to convince them, which obviously doesn’t work.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry has slapped down Slovakia’s prime minister for saying the war with Russia will only end when Kyiv gives up its claim to Crimea and the Donbas. Russian forces have advanced near the heavily-contested eastern town of Avdiivka, currently held by Ukraine, according to reports. Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough - so the Army should be designed to expand rapidly "to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon, and train and equip the citizen army that must follow".

Ukraine invasion — explained
The day before the start of the war, Putin told the nation of WWII-era promises not to expand NATO eastward and said those promises had been broken five times. Ukraine's flirtation with NATO membership pushed those fears into overdrive. I want peace, but my grandmother thinks our military is needed to protect Russians in eastern Ukraine. She supports our president, despite the fact that her whole family is still over there. When I hear it from Ukrainian people, I begin to doubt that our president’s strategy is wrong.


We write about it on social networks, sign petitions, send money, go to rallies, but so far this hasn’t yielded any results, the government only hits us with a truncheon. I don’t support that view, but I do think we need some changes. On one hand, it’s affected everyone – psychologically, economically, and in many other ways. And on the other hand, I understand that we could be hurt if we did something to try and change it. People are arrested for even walking around the area where a protest was scheduled. When I think about the conflict, I feel anxious, sad, and frustrated.

How Do Ukrainians Think About Russians Now?
The Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones were shot down over central and southern areas of Ukraine, its air force said. Russia will be grilled by the United Nations on Monday about the thousands of Ukrainian children believed to have been abducted and sent to Russia since the war began. Ukrainian drones attacked a St Petersburg oil terminal on Friday and another 110 miles west at Ust-Luga on Sunday. A man serving in Ukraine’s national guard has been arrested after four people were murdered in a Donetsk city.

Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Ukraine’s president earlier signed a decree instructing the government to develop a plan for preserving the national identity of the “historically inhabited lands” of Krasnodar Krai, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk and Rostov. For another, it has exposed how the centralised administrative machinery, built by Mr Putin, struggles in an emergency. Most Russians also do not expect a Ukrainian attack on their country -- only 31% of Russians said that was likely. Now it has downgraded the travel warning for the regions to “all but essential travel”, while maintaining the previous warning in the rest of Ukraine. To train and equip that larger army would inevitably require more money.
Conscription requires young men and women to serve for a limited time in uniform. 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. Those standing against Mr Putin in the upcoming election, including anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin, have until Wednesday to gather the required number of supporters' signatures to back their campaigns.

A former ambassador argues that Pakistan needs a new political compact
Thousands of non-Ukrainians have served in its armed forces since Russia’s invasion in 2014. Ukrainian agricultural exports surged in December after it successfully forced Russia out of the western half of the Black Sea, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said. Ukraine’s armed forces have denied having anything to do with the attack. “The Kyiv regime is continuing to show its vicious side in that they are striking civilian infrastructure. They are striking people, civilians,” he said, adding that the attack on the same day in Donetsk which killed 25 was a “heinous act of terrorism”.

Russia's ambitions, he said, were not just about seizing territory but "about defeating our system and way of life politically, psychologically and symbolically". The national guard is controlled by the interior ministry and is responsible for internal security, public order and guarding critical infrastructure. Volkov adds that public opinion matters, even though the Russian government isn't taking the public's pulse in order to plan its next moves.
Throughout the war, researchers have been trying to understand what factors would reduce public support in Russia. “The feeling of the inevitability of war from the life of Russians, the feeling that the war is now with us, and we are with this life, caused the emergence of new meanings of war,” Zhuravlev said. Koneva said researchers found that people in this group, the largest single segment of the population, have contradictory attitudes toward the war, consisting of narratives from both sides of the conflict. Koneva said her research group has focused on examining the opinions of the core audience that supports Russia’s war in Ukraine. At first glance, the Koneva group's most recent polls from Russia continue to show broad public support for the war.

And if I am not imprisoned soon for speaking out against war, I want to try – together with like-minded people – to do everything I can to give our country hope for a peaceful future. Was hatred a natural and ultimately inevitable response to the atrocities Ukrainians were being subjected to? Does it change anything to know that many Russians oppose Putin’s war but are powerless to stop him, or to understand that others have been duped into supporting it through his hyper-nationalistic discourse? A few weeks after my trip, I contacted Peter Pomerantsev, who had accompanied me from Lviv to Kyiv. He had been born in Kyiv in 1977, when Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union, but was brought up and educated in the United Kingdom, after his parents went into exile there. He has worked in both London and Moscow, where he became an expert on Russian propaganda.


“They are also of the opinion that, while Ukraine could not stand up to an all-out Russian invasion, Russia would lose much more from that than any military victory would win,” he said. “The reason why 75% of Russians think Russia will not invade Ukraine is simply because of what they read in their newspapers and see on their TV. There is basically no hysteria, no beating of the war drum, a consistent message that we do not want a war and will not start one,” Pozner said. “It speaks to the view that, should Ukraine become a NATO member, and should NATO forces be deployed on Russia’s doorstep, that would constitute an existential threat and therefore cannot be allowed,” Pozner told CNN by email. Across the country and across all ages, a majority of Ukrainians say they are not “one people” with Russians and that the two countries should not be one. But the poll also found that more Russians think it would be wrong than right to use military force “to reunite Russia and Ukraine” – two countries with a long and complicated history of being intertwined.

It is presented as a “just war” predicated upon Russia’s responsibility to help Russians in need. The size of its active armed forces is only 19,000 personnel, but it can call on another 238,000 reserves. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left Russia, including me and my BBC Russian colleagues. Images on social media have shown long queues forming at ATMs and money exchanges around the country in recent days, with people worried their bank cards may stop working or that limits will be placed on the amount of cash they can withdraw.
Kyiv estimates that 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia. Moscow says it wants to protect these children from the fighting. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is holding a two-day hearing on Russia’s record on the treatment of children.

Even so, rather than taking place in different public locations around the city, as usual, the forum was convened in an underground theatre on the hilltop campus of Ukrainian Catholic University, a ten-minute drive from the city center. There, for three days, panelists addressed topics related to Ukraine, Russia, war, and culture. Early Thursday morning, any remaining skepticism that their country would invade was put to rest, when Mr. Putin declared a “special military operation” in Ukraine. To understand the nature and composition of the pro-war majority, you need to dig deeper. Russian state television—instrumental in shaping public opinion—serves all these audiences. https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-isnt-nato-sending-troops-to-ukraine.html can be treated, like surveys elsewhere, as genuine signals of Russian public opinion.


It is the duty of the military to analyse that threat, and they still might be proved wrong. But European nations closer to Russian borders appear to be taking it more seriously. A source familiar with the situation said the drone fell at about 7am local time but had not affected fuel output.

Here's my website: https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-isnt-nato-sending-troops-to-ukraine.html