Notes

Ukraine conflict: What we know about the invasion
This, in turn, would likely weaken the regime and distract Russia from what remains of its war effort. If there was no clear successor, Mr Putin's departure could spur on a brutal power struggle among pro-war, right-wing nationalists, authoritarian conservatives and a murky anti-war movement. Mr Putin's exit would not end the war in Ukraine because the Russian leader would likely be replaced by another pro-war nationalist, Professor Clarke said. However, if the war were to drag on this year and into next year, the reasoning could change. Mr Zelenskyy has so far ruled this out as a possibility, proposing a 10-point "formula for peace," which includes demands for a full withdrawal from Ukraine's territory.


It has also said it will continue to target these areas with military strikes. There is also a Ukrainian counter-attack around the Kherson region in the south of the country. Meanwhile, Indian thinktank Observer Research Foundation's Russia expert, Nandan Unnikrishnan, said India was unlikely to sign "any major military deal" with Russia because it would cross a red line with the US. Unnamed Indian government sources have suggested India wants to distance itself from Russia, according to Reuters news agency. If the US abandons the military alliance, it will fall to European countries to ensure a Ukrainian victory, Mr OBrien says.

Allies hit back
"The nightmare scenario would be that the states close to Russia double down on aid to Ukraine while those farther west decide to force a deal on Putin's terms. Then Europe itself could fracture," he says. "The document referred to in the Financial Times article is a background note written by the secretariat of the council under its own responsibility which describes the current status of the Hungarian economy," the statement by the senior EU official said. That could end up looking something like the Korean peninsula, with a demilitarised zone between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled territory, or a grinding perpetual conflict that flares up and down, eventually resulting in an uneasy truce. But to analysts, like Morris, the prospect of Putin being removed is extremely unlikely — and the chances that whoever replaces him will be less hawkish are even more remote. “There isn’t really any source of alternative power to coalesce around while Putin is healthy and alive,” said Morris. The Russian ruling elite saw the Soviet Union’s collapse merely as a reconfiguration in which former Soviet countries would “continue to be together in some way”, Popova told Al Jazeera, whereas Ukraine saw it as an opportunity to be fully independent.


The words of Danilov and Arestovich were spoken before the Ukrainian counteroffensive began in June. This is the same percentage as in November of 2022, since the last victorious Ukrainian counteroffensive, when half of the province of Kherson was liberated. Ukraine claims it has killed more than 50,000 Russian troops, and at the end of August said it had lost nearly 9,000 military personnel since the start of the conflict. The Donbas is a mainly Russian-speaking area, and after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, pro-Russian forces captured more than a third of the region. The areas are largely in the eastern Donbas region and in the south of mainland Ukraine, as well as the Crimea peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014.

After the Ukraine war, what comes next? NATO allies don't agree
A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe. "This is a factual paper which does not reflect the status of the ongoing negotiations. The note does not outline any specific plan relating to the [long-term EU budget] and Ukraine Facility, nor does it outline any plan relating to Hungary," it said. The Russian-installed mayor of Donetsk has reported at least three civilians have been killed in a rocket strike. Some observers have suggested that continued defeats on the battlefield might result in Putin’s downfall. After all, Russian defeats in the Crimean War in the 19th century, and losses to Japan and in Afghanistan in the 20th century, all catalysed profound domestic changes.

Many Germans and other Europeans have lacked trust in the United States since then-US President Donald Trump denigrated Germany and the NATO alliance. 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. Even if there will be no direct US military engagement inside Ukraine, spiraling energy and food prices could boost already-high inflation numbers in the United States. While the West could warn Kyiv that it would stop supplies of weapons or financial support if Ukraine were to insist on defying the US or Europe, “this kind of threat is not credible”, Slantchev told Al Jazeera. In this scenario, 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.
And the United States should do everything possible to support it, including, if Congress approves more funding, by providing the more advanced weapons Ukraine has requested. The slower global economic growth that our scenarios predict, along with the retrenchment and fragmentation of globalization, would be unwelcome developments for most of the world’s nations. https://richard-andresen.hubstack.net/why-many-russians-feel-a-deep-unease-over-going-to-war-the-new-york-times-1707945216 will likely involve more civil conflict and impoverishment. Although they will be reluctant to align with either the United States and its allies or China and Russia, many developing countries will probably be susceptible to Chinese influence, given China’s massive investments in regions such as Africa and Latin America. With much of the developing world on the front lines of climate change, a breakdown in global cooperation could bring less help on that score too.

Billions in weapons pledged for Ukraine but uncertainty hangs over German tanks
The rapidity and the fury with which the United States, Europe, and major Asian economies (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia) slapped severe sanctions on Russia almost certainly came as a shock to China’s leaders. The swift Western response will give ammunition to Chinese proponents of more fully decoupling the country’s financial system from the West. Beijing’s goals as part of its Made in China 2025 initiative to become self-sufficient in key high-tech areas, and China Standards 2035, an effort to shape trade and technology standards and rules, seem even more urgent. What follows are four scenarios for how this war could conclude and the alternative geopolitical futures that might result, transforming international relations over the course of the next two to three years. We develop scenarios not to predict the future but to help decision makers imagine what could happen next and devise ways to prevent the worst case. The only certainty about the war over Ukraine is that all existing certainties have been shattered.

Furthermore, there was no armed conflict between East and West Germany. It claims to have regained 3,000 square kilometres (1,158 sq miles) of territory around the city of Kharkiv alone. In fact, an advisor to the Slovak Foreign Ministry explained to EL PAÍS that one of his government’s main concerns is that, when the time comes to force negotiations between the two sides, Ukraine will take an authoritarian path. Ukraine, meanwhile, would need years of western support to ensure its eastern border remains stable. While the Russian economy has had many ups and downs and only enjoyed robust growth for a few years in the early 2000s, the Chinese economy experienced three decades of rapid, unbroken growth—until recently, that is. 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.
Industrial-age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority. Russia's defence budget has tripled since 2021 and will consume 30% of government spending next year. With Western hesitancy bolstering Russia, and in the absence of either a coup or a health-related issue leading to Putin's demise, the only foreseeable outcome will be a negotiated settlement that for now both sides continue to refuse. For democracies, long-term consensus in support for war has always been more complicated than for autocrats with no accountability.


Similar attacks continued for several days and show no sign of abating in the new year. This prompted the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to warn that Russia was probably planning a prolonged air campaign aimed at exhausting Ukraine. The recent arms donations — Kyiv still wants fighter aircraft and long-range tactical missiles — are predicated on the assumption they’ll force Moscow to end its invasion and begin negotiations because military costs are too high.

While Americans back providing aid for Ukraine, a recent Pew Research Poll found nearly a quarter believe the country is providing too much support to Ukraine. Massive cyber-attacks sweep across Ukraine, targeting key national infrastructure. Industrial-age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority. 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.
As the world’s biggest marketplace, Europe has long punched below its weight. This section examines the enduring changes in the world that are evident so far and how our scenarios could further impact the movement of these repositioned chess pieces. "We are in for a very long fight, this is not going to be short, this is not only going to be about Ukraine. ... This is probably the biggest challenge that we are seeing in Europe since World War II," he said.


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