Notes

U S. and Britain reportedly believe the Ukraine war could last 10-20 years, become a Russian quagmire
That hasn't let up, if only because it's a powerful emotional and recruitment tool. Twenty million Soviets — Russians, Ukrainians and others — died fighting Hitler's armies. In other words, the war affected nearly every family here. This is a grinding trench and artillery war of attrition. The invasion has been a disaster for President Vladimir Putin and in order to justify it at home he at least has to take control of Ukraine's Donbas region, after which he can falsely claim that the army saved Russian citizens persecuted by Ukraine.


Hein Goemans Well, the Germans quote unquote, “lost” on the battlefield and they kept fighting another four years. And at some moments they came very close to winning, right? So it’s a somewhat naive perspective because I think that Russia has plenty of hardware and mobilisation potential to keep fighting for a long time. The question is, do the Russians think that they still have a chance to score the necessary victory? So, I mean, if they push back the Russians all the way to the 1991 borders, the Ukrainians are gonna say, “We’re willing to settle,” and it would be genuine. I don’t see why the Russians would ever accept it, to repeat myself.

Russian woman jailed for 27 years for handing bomb to war blogger
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv will fully investigate the circumstances around the crash, adding that "facts" were a key priority. He accused Russia of "playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society." But despite the dire state of Russia’s forces and the years-long quagmire its economy faces, Putin has shown no indication he intends to scale back his goals or seek a way out of the war, insisting Russia’s victory is “inevitable” and its “goals will be met in full”. Nearly a year later, Russia’s army is no closer to winning the war — and has even lost part of the territory that Putin attempted to annex last September.

If he uses a nuke against a civilian target, I mean, the whole world is gonna be against them, you know. Later, Ukraine's intelligence agency confirmed that a prisoner exchange had been scheduled but did not take place. In the meantime, the ISW noted in an analysis, "Ukrainian forces establish and consolidate defensive positions to conserve manpower and resources for future offensive efforts."
This week, Mr Putin put his nuclear forces on a higher level of alert. Most analysts doubt this means their use is likely or imminent. But it was a reminder that Russian doctrine allows for the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. “Either Ukraine keeps fighting with sustained Western support and eventually forces Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine entirely, with the possible exception of Crimea,” he said, referring to the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. He noted, however that this would pre-suppose a Russian military collapse and a change in the country’s leadership – something that could take “a long time to achieve and would necessitate considerably greater military capabilities” than Ukraine currently possesses.

That said, there wasn't much of a political will for third countries to sanction Cuba at the time. It's possible today's situation with Russia might make such a policy more politically palatable if the U.S. attempted it again, though I can't find any serious proposal in the government to do just that. After Russia first invaded in 2014, the U.S. military stepped up training for the Ukrainian military in western Ukraine. U.S. trainers continued working in Ukraine right up until the full-scale Russian invasion a year ago. From the very beginning of the war, President Putin has drawn parallels between the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II and the current military campaign against supposed "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine.

When will the war in Ukraine end?
So if we both know how the war is gonna end and more or less what the outcome is gonna be, then it makes no sense for us to keep on fighting because we’re just throwing away lives, cost. So we have to come to the stage where both sides more or less know what the outcome is going to be, and we are not there yet. There is an additional stage and after that, certain leaders may not wanna terminate the war because they are afraid that their loss will cost them their lives. 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 has also changed conscription laws, foreseeing the need to bolster its forces, which are dwarfed in size by Russia's but are more highly trained and equipped.

"The goal is obvious — they want to reduce international support for our state. It doesn't work! Ukraine has the right to protect and destroy the means of an aggressor's air attack," he said in comments translated by NBC News. Perhaps most significant is the activity around Avdiivka, a strategically important town on the front line in eastern Ukraine. The EU's decision to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova is more than just symbolic. Intense fighting continues nonetheless, and particularly around Bakhmut and Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces are conducting offensive operations and have made some recent, confirmed advances. While he said such an attack is unlikely now, "our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible".
It's hoped that the flight data recorders will shed light on what happened to the Il-76 plane that crashed on Wednesday, killing all 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war and nine Russians on board. Kyiv was initially silent as details of the plane crash emerged Wednesday morning. Later, Ukraine's intelligence agency confirmed that a prisoner exchange had been scheduled but did not take place. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the south-western frontline at Mykolaiv and the nearby city of Odesa on Saturday. He insisted after his visit that Ukraine would not cede any of the occupied territories in the south of the country to Russia, which occupies the bulk of the country’s coastal areas. While Ukraine’s location has afforded it outsize attention relative to other conflicts, it’s also what makes the prospect of a drawn-out war even more likely.

Russia attacks Ukraine: More coverage
In his first major speech on defence, Grant Shapps said the country was moving from a "post war to a pre-war world". Talk of wider war in Europe and the potential need for mass mobilisation or a "citizen army" may sound alarming. But the head of the British Army Gen Sir Patrick Sanders is not alone in issuing a national call to prepare for a major conflict on European soil. On Tuesday, the ISW said that Russian defenses appeared to lack strength in depth on a key part of the front line where Ukraine has made recent gains. But, 18 months into the conflict, Russia only occupies parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014. In fact, CIA Director Bill Burns told lawmakers weeks after the start of the invasion that Putin's strategy was centered on "seizing Kyiv within the first two days of the campaign."

Ukraine has not admitted nor denied responsibility for the attack, calling for an international investigation into the incident. 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. Numbers are hard to come by, but Russia had an estimated 1,500 fighter jets before the war began and still has the vast majority of them, probably 1,400 or more. As the war enters its second year, the spigot of military aid is still gushing.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, conceded in an interview that his country had “concentrated our energy supply too much on Russia” to the point that it was not possible to change course “if the worst came to the worst”. But he defended his predecessor Angela Merkel’s policy of seeking good relations with Moscow. Ukraine has been calling for a large influx of western weaponry so that it can try to push back the Russian invaders, but what has been offered so far is less than Kyiv has requested. The US, UK and Germany have promised to send 10 rocket artillery systems, but Ukrainian advisers have called for 60 or even 300. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also warned of a longer-term conflict. It's perhaps the only thing more complicated than sanctions enforcement, and this question touches on both.


But back to the Ukrainians, there’s many other kind of examples where states have tried to punish the civilians in the hope to break their will. Hein Goemans If Russia believes that it can still mobilise and has another trick up its sleeve, it won’t do it. Or they may try very risky strategies, as the Germans did in the first world war. I think there is a chance that Ukrainians will push forward during the spring if they have integrated the tanks, but they may have to wait until they get the planes. If they get the plane to do the combined arms warfare at which Nato excels and which the Russians simply can’t do and which is a massive force multiplier.


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. Yet https://barlow-larsen.blogbright.net/media-in-russia-how-do-russians-get-news-about-the-war-in-ukraine-1708116358 is already looking at how it might create a citizens' army. One Whitehall source told the Times that the training of Ukrainian civilians on UK soil could act as a rehearsal for rapid Army expansion. Finland, Nato's newest member and a country which has an 800-mile border with Russia, has wider conscription. Around 80% of the male population complete some form of military service.

The US defence aid package is held hostage by what President Biden rightly labelled "petty politics" in Washington. In December, he approved spending that will see the military take up around 30 percent of Russia's total budget in 2024. So, I mean, if they push back the Russians all the way to the 1991 borders, the Ukrainians are gonna say, “We’re willing to settle,” and it would be genuine. Hein Goemans It seems to me that Putin might have tried it early on the war, but he can’t do it anymore.
And even though the fall of the Soviet Union was notable for its lack of bloodshed, many in Ukraine refer to today's conflict as a true "war of independence." All these measures were approved when both the House and the Senate were controlled by Democrats. Some Republicans are saying the U.S. should stop funding Ukraine. Democrats in Congress overwhelmingly support aid for Ukraine, and most Republicans do as well. The U.S. Congress approved four separate spending bills for Ukraine in the past year totaling $112 billion. The rest is funding the Ukrainian government (this helps pay the salaries of Ukrainian government workers) and humanitarian aid to help the millions of Ukrainians who have been driven from their homes.

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