Notes

BBC Radio 4 From Our Own Correspondent, What do Russians think of the war in Ukraine?
None of us wanted this war, and we stand in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions. At demonstrations, people are detained for several days or fined. Now, any anti-war speech can result in up to 15 years of imprisonment. Some of my friends are leaving the country right now, and I understand them.

Polls suggest the majority of Russians, if not supporting the war, certainly do not oppose it. Ukrainian high morale is a key reason, in addition to advanced Western armaments, that the defenders have dramatically outperformed expectations. Though Scholz has refused to outright ban Russian oil and gas imports, he has blocked the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and committed to a long-term strategy of weaning Germany off of Russian energy. Shelling had intensified since Monday when Putin recognised two separatist regions as independent and ordered the deployment of what he called peacekeepers, a move the West called the start of an invasion.
Galina Zapryanova, senior regional editor for the Gallup World Poll, told VOA that polling in Russia " has indeed become more challenging since 2022, but it is not impossible." “Analysts have learned to deal with and avoid authoritarian pressure,” said Koneva, founder of independent research agency ExtremeScan. Russia has opened up at times after moments of calamity and catastrophe. This message has echoed down the centuries and brooks no dissent or prospect for change.

What is the state of the fighting?
More than 14,000 Ukrainians have died since 2014 in fighting in the Donbas. Since Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula and backed militants in the eastern Donbas region in 2014, there's been no real let-up in fighting, cyber-attacks and misinformation. Russia's defence ministry has denied attacking Ukrainian cities - saying it was targeting military infrastructure, air defence and air forces with "high-precision weapons". If the United States and NATO heed the call of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to impose a so-called “no-fly zone” over Ukrainian skies, the situation changes dramatically. No-fly zones are commitments to patrol and, if necessary, shoot down military aircraft that fly in the declared area, generally for the purpose of protecting civilians. In Ukraine, that would mean the US and its NATO allies sending in jets to patrol Ukraine’s skies — and being willing to shoot down any Russian planes that enter protected airspace.

Balazs Orban, chief political aide to the prime minister, said Hungary sent a proposal to the EU over the weekend showing it was open to using the budget for the aid package if other "caveats" were added. At the same time, there have been cases of pro-war pupils recording their teachers making dovish statements in class, and reporting them to the authorities. Right now though, Russian people are not free to express their opinions anyway, with a new law in place making it a criminal offence to say anything about the Ukraine conflict which the authorities consider untrue. Here’s where Ukraine has mounted multiple attacks this week in the apparent beginning of its long-planned counteroffensive. The Javelin anti-tank missile system, for example, is a lightweight American-made launcher that allows one or two infantry soldiers to take out a tank. It’s not clear how well this is working — some reporting suggests the Russians aren’t answering American calls — but there is a long history of effective dialogue between rivals who are fighting each other through proxy forces.
But later on Thursday President Zelensky said Ukraine had suffered losses and a lot of aircraft and armoured vehicles had been destroyed. The Russian offensive was preceded by artillery fire and there were injuries to border guards, the DPSU said. Convoys have also entered the eastern Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, and moved into the Kherson region from Crimea - a territory that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Analysts describe the small country as Russia's "client state".

Ukraine war: Why so many Russians turn a blind eye to the conflict
China, by contrast, has been the most pro-Russia of the major global powers. Though https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-is-a-vacuum-bomb-ukraine.html has refused to outright ban Russian oil and gas imports, he has blocked the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and committed to a long-term strategy of weaning Germany off of Russian energy. All signs point to Russia waking a sleeping giant — of creating a powerful military and economic enemy in the heart of the European continent. There have also been antiwar rallies in dozens of Russian cities. How many have participated in these rallies is hard to say, but the human rights group OVD-Info estimates that over 15,000 Russians have been arrested at the events since the war began.


But everyone who wants to participate can easily find out about it. For example, in certain online communities, they’ll just post a single number (indicating a date) and everyone understands everything. But I don’t feel safe expressing my opinion, especially when I talk about it online or on the phone.

Accessibility links
Mr Putin has a long record of masterfully manipulating public sentiment. By siding with the more militant part of the pro-war camp, which has long demanded mobilisation, Mr Putin may force doubters to pick a side and thus polarise society. He calculates that the greater (though still limited) involvement of the Russian population in Ukraine may push Russians to support their boys in uniform more strongly.


The Levada Center stays within those parameters by asking whether people support the actions of the Russian military. A couple walk in front of the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and St Basil's cathedral in downtown Moscow. While 80% of poll respondents say they support Russia's military, some have mixed feelings. Ukraine closed its airspace to civilian flights citing a high risk to safety, while Russia suspended domestic flights at airports near its border with Ukraine until March 2. On Thursday morning, Putin said he had authorised military action to defend itself against what he said were threats emanating from Ukraine. In response, Western countries and Japan have imposed sanctions on Russian banks and individuals.


And he added that any intervention from outside powers to resist the Russian attack would be met with an "instant" and devastating response. Mr Putin said Russia was intervening as an act of self-defence. Russia did not want to occupy Ukraine, he said, but would demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the country. Russia has begun a large-scale military attack on Ukraine, its southern neighbour, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Still, he notes, the survey results reveal at least as much about what people are willing to say in public than about how they truly feel. But even after the Russian high command adjusted its strategy, other flaws in the army remained. Convoys have also entered the eastern Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, and moved into the Kherson region from Crimea - a territory that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. This could see states like Poland and the Baltics decide to aid Ukraine on their own, which "might leave NATO's eastern front vulnerable and cause a crisis within the EU and European NATO". Over the weekend the central bank appealed for calm amid fears of a run on the banks, which happens when too many people try to withdraw money.
"Eventually, I believe that we will be able to communicate openly again." Permafrost is the permanently frozen ground found across the Arctic. As it thaws, it creates massive problems for infrastructure built on top of it, causing roads to buckle, building foundations to crack and pipelines to break. In order to build climate models that can accurately predict what will happen to the Arctic in the future, scientists need measurements from across the Arctic. If the available data is concentrated in a few places, like Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia, and excludes Russia's vast Arctic expanses, then the models will be increasingly inaccurate, the study finds. 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.


Vladimir Putin’s Russia has sharply constricted the space for free expression in recent years, but some independent pollsters who fled the country have not abandoned their work. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. That the Kremlin was right to block the majority of independent media sites they used to read. Polls suggest the majority of Russians, if not supporting the war, certainly do not oppose it. A bus service has started up connecting the city to the local cemetery where growing numbers of soldiers killed in Ukraine are being buried.

In the south, Ukrainian forces are contesting Russian control over Kherson. Russia has made some gains, especially in the east and south, but the consensus view among military experts is that Ukraine’s defenses have held stoutly — to the point where Ukrainians have been able to launch counteroffensives. “The formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us,” as he put it in his 2021 essay. Addressing some of the most pressing questions of the whole war, from how it started to how it might end. The educated and the wealthy, many of them urban residents, are fleeing mobilisation. Those with more meagre resources are going to recruiting stations.

Website: https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-is-a-vacuum-bomb-ukraine.html