Notes

U S. is 'fully prepared' if Russia invades Ukraine, secretary of state says : NPR
While Canada has been one of the most consistent and vocal supporters of Ukraine's bid to join NATO, it probably couldn't influence Russia's actions on its own. By joining NATO, Ukraine could obtain a much greater degree of security. Each of NATO's 30 members would be obliged to defend Ukraine if it were attacked. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who took office in 2019, has tried to strengthen his country's ties to the West. He has lobbied aggressively for NATO to expedite Ukraine's request for membership.


Kuzio noted that there has been speculation about Moscow seeking to install former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was stripped of his powers by Ukrainian lawmakers during the 2014 Maidan Revolution and fled Kyiv for Russia. To date, only one city has definitively fallen to the Russians since the invasion began in the early morning of Feb. 24 — Kherson — although others like Mariupol, in the south, appear to be perilously close amid food, water and power shortages. However it's widely expected that Russian President Vladimir Putin, loathing Ukraine's current pro-Western government and its aspirations to join the EU and NATO, wants to install a pro-Russian regime in Kyiv.

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That was before the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, so the promise made to then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev referred merely to East Germany in the context of a reunified Germany. Turkey had some success last summer with the UN in mediating a deal on resuming grain exports through the Black Sea but has had no success since. China is looking for a role in securing a political settlement, but its position is probably too close to Russia to be considered an honest broker. The seeds of this war were sown in 2013, when Moscow persuaded Ukraine's pro-Russian leader to scrap a planned pact with the European Union, prompting protests that ultimately brought him down and led to Russia seizing Crimea and staging a land-grab in the east.


Such a situation is a tinderbox in Europe, Ian Bremmer, Eurasia Group's president, said in emailed comments Monday. He noted that it's a "non-starter" for the West to send troops to fight alongside Ukrainians or to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine "because that leads to direct confrontation between NATO and Russian troops and accordingly risks World War III." While this scenario might appear positive for Ukraine, with Russia becoming a pariah state at a global level and withdrawing after a costly invasion, Ukraine would be "devastated" in the process, the strategists said. In this scenario, the strategists noted, Russia would realize it has "once again fought an unwinnable war, the proverbial quagmire that has trapped many powerful states through history." Russia's military strategy has at times been beset with logistical problems, confusing the picture of what Russia's main or immediate goals are.

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Such a move is well within Russia's naval capabilities, and it could bring Ukraine's economy to its knees, the country's former defense minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk warned in June. It's still possible Russia could pull back its troops, although Moscow's tough language suggests otherwise. "You have a Ukrainian land army that has gotten much better, much more capable," since 2014, said Breedlove, who is now at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank. Basic food supplies in African and Asian countries that depend on Ukraine, the world’s fifth-largest wheat exporter in 2020, will be hit. Additional, defensive Nato deployments on Russia’s borders could increase the risk of Europe-wide conflagration. The primary aim would be the rapid capitulation of Ukraine’s government in Kyiv and the “neutralisation” of its elected leaders.


Russia said it has destroyed more than 70 military targets in Ukraine. But later on Thursday President Zelensky said Ukraine had suffered losses and a lot of aircraft and armoured vehicles had been destroyed. And he added that any intervention from outside powers to resist the Russian attack would be met with an "instant" and devastating response. RAND is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous.

What happens if Russia invades Ukraine?
The war that erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014 has already left 14,000 dead and an estimated 1.4 million displaced. The intelligence official described the build-up as a "slow drip" and a "slow ratcheting up of pressure". With just three UK-provided Storm Shadow cruise missiles, they have forced the commander of the Black Sea Fleet to withdraw a third of his fleet from Sevastopol. Ukraine will do all it can to keep pressure on the Russians there to make it untenable for the Russian navy in Sevastopol, the handful of air force bases there and their logistics base at Dzankoy. Russia lacks a decisive, breakthrough capability to overrun Ukraine and will do what it can to hold on to what it currently occupies, using the time to strengthen its defences while it hopes for the West to lose the will to continue supporting Ukraine.


The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine go back decades and run deep. The current conflict is more than one country fighting to take over another; it is — in the words of one U.S. official — a shift in "the world order."Here are some helpful stories to make sense of it all. But Ukraine's air defenses were surprisingly effective, shooting down many Russian fighter jets and helicopters in the first couple months of the war. That said, there wasn't much of a political will for third countries to sanction Cuba at the time.

Additional, defensive Nato deployments on Russia’s borders could increase the risk of Europe-wide conflagration. And for many years thereafter, Russia could face reinforced NATO military power. While Covid was a useful exercise in Armageddon planning, 21st-century Britain is arguably less ready for actual warfare than it was even 30 years ago. A Russian naval operation would be likely to include the seizure of a tiny island in the Black Sea known as Snake Island, or Zmiyiniy Ostriv. As well as curbs on foreign consumer goods, there’d be runs on more basic products like medical kits, fuel canisters and masking tape to stop windows shattering during bombing raids.
And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place. "The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open," said UN Secretary General António Guterres. President Macron of France has spoken to President Putin on the phone.

Only aircraft deployed to protect energy facilities, or those carrying top Russian or foreign officials, will be allowed to fly with special permission in the designated zones, according to the Vedomosti daily newspaper. Peter Szijjarto has arrived in Ukraine for talks with senior officials today. NATO does not want a full-scale war in Europe, and Russian President Vladimir Putin knows he would lose a conflict with a 30-member military alliance led by the Americans. Even weakened, Russia remains capable of inflicting heavy damage upon others. A year into the war, he talks of Russia fighting to defend its "historical frontiers" and "rebuilding peaceful life in Donbas and Novorossiya", spelling out that Ukraine's southern territories are part of his project, just as much as the east.
The US and UK have not ruled out arming resistance fighters, as during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. British ministers predict a long-running “quagmire”, with Russia suffering significant casualties. Analysts say Russia could opt for a more limited, less risky offensive to grab extra territory in eastern Ukraine and the Donbas, while asserting the independence of pro-Moscow breakaway republics there, as in Georgia in 2008. It may also try to seize the major ports of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov and Odessa on the Black Sea, and create a “land bridge” to Crimea.


A year ago, Ukraine's international military support was solid with NATO pledging to support Kyiv for "as long as it takes" as it defended itself against Russia's invasion launched in February 2022. Bremmer said Russia may therefore resort to more indirect attacks including cyberattacks against critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns, and even the possible sanctioning of terrorism in and against NATO countries. In https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-many-jews-live-in-ukraine.html , the strategists noted that a Ukrainian insurgency could force "a significant, sustained human and financial toll on Russia" as it would be required to devote far more of its resources over a much longer period of time than it had anticipated. In the meantime, NATO countries "would likely provide covert but very robust defensive assistance to the Ukrainian resistance."

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