Notes

When and how will Ukraine's war with Russia end?
The fourth option – the sole positive one – contemplates Ukraine winning the war and expelling the Russians from its territory. In a decisive offensive in the north-east, Ukraine drove back Russian forces. It claims to have regained 3,000 square kilometres (1,158 sq miles) of territory around the city of Kharkiv alone.

Russia has begun a large-scale military attack on Ukraine, its southern neighbour, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The war, which ended with the Chechen capital razed to the ground and Chechen resistance largely stamped out, left a lasting imprint on Putin’s approach to regions seeking to break away from Russian influence, according to analysts. Critically, this includes a Patriot air defence system – something Ukraine has long coveted. But Smith also said ATACMS producer Lockheed Martin no longer makes the missiles, and the U.S. military still needs them in its stockpiles. With a deep recession already baked in for the foreseeable future, Putin is also counting on the quietism of the Russian public.
And they said winning will depend on a Congress with the resolve to ensure continued support to Ukraine. But even then, the very concept of victory may be inaccurate, they warned. At some point, Ukraine will have to decide if there's a military solution to the conflict or if it has to look for another way out without conceding any kind of defeat, Barrons said. https://www.openlearning.com/u/michaelsenbishop-s2dhzs/blog/WhenWillTheWarInUkraineEndAnd9MoreQuestionsAboutRussiaSInvasionNpr012 to do that is with an armistice, a temporary agreement to cease military operations, but one that does not conclude the war decisively. Defense experts say it's unlikely the counteroffensive will see any breakthroughs this year.

Ukraine targets a key Crimean city after striking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters
But the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander, warned at the hearing that the current funding level “does not preclude” the administration from needing to request more assistance before the end of September. But this turns sour and enough members of Russia's military, political and economic elite turn against him. The West makes clear that if Putin goes and is replaced by a more moderate leader, then Russia will see the lifting of some sanctions and a restoration of normal diplomatic relations. But it may not be implausible if the people who have benefited from Mr Putin no longer believe he can defend their interests.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, is currently acting as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. 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. As a result, Russia essentially stopped flying fighter jets over Ukraine.
Several specialised non-governmental organisations have also been created, like the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and the Helsinki-based Crisis Management Initiative. There have been many developments in the field of peace mediation over the past decades. The United Nations, the African Union and other international organisations have set up mediation teams. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to be resolved on the battlefield. An end to the bloodshed and destruction of Ukraine can be negotiated, but such negotiations need to be mediated carefully.

Ukraine war: Three ways the conflict could go in 2024
Hungary has signalled it is ready to compromise on EU funding for Ukraine - after Brussels reportedly prepared to sabotage its economy if it did not comply. Meanwhile, Moscow has claimed its forces have taken control of the village of Tabaivka in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region. In this scenario, the United States would give the Ukrainian military whatever it needs to advance as far as possible in its counteroffensive.


The EU's decision to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova is more than just symbolic. It implicitly means continued backing for Kyiv, as a future in the EU for Ukraine would be impossible with a full-blown victory for Russia. The US defence aid package is held hostage by what President Biden rightly labelled "petty politics" in Washington. And the future of the EU's economic aid is seemingly dependent on Hungary's incongruous stance. Compared with this time last year, Vladimir Putin is stronger, politically more than militarily. We asked three military analysts how they think events may unfold in the coming 12 months.


That objective has coexisted with an expectation that Putin’s government will probably never stop fighting, as losing the war could spell the end to his political power. Under Article 5 of the military alliance's charter, an attack on one member is an attack on all. But Mr Putin might take the risk if he felt it was the only way of saving his leadership. If he was, perhaps, facing defeat in Ukraine, he might be tempted to escalate further.

The Ukrainian armed forces said they had shot down five Russian planes and a helicopter - which Russia denies - and inflicted casualties on invading troops. For the past two months, Russia has systematically targeted Ukrainian infrastructure, devastating the country’s power grid and putting many basic services from healthcare to sanitation at risk. But China itself is a major importer of semiconductors and may not be able to replace some high-end chips that Russia will need. A fire broke out at a Baltic Sea terminal belonging to Novatek, Russia's largest liquefied natural gas producer, after a suspected Ukrainian drone attack, forcing the company to suspend some operations there. "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. Wielding its economic prowess and new military investments, Germany wants to take a leading role in international affairs.
Analysts say conquering pieces of Ukraine wouldn't necessarily mean an end to the fighting. "If the Russian spring offensive was successful … they could possibly take all of the area west and [to] the east of the Dnieper River, and then make a puppet state out of what's left of Ukraine," Professor Clarke added. Russian nationalist voices have already expressed skepticism in Russia's ability to launch a successful offensive, but Ukraine's defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, says Moscow could "try something" to mark the anniversary of its initial invasion. The Russian side hasn't escalated as much as it can, analysts say, and another offensive aligns with Mr Putin's strategy to double down when backed into a corner. US President Joe Biden's recent unannounced trip to Ukraine was also intended to rally NATO support for Ukraine, after insisting there would be no backing down from what he's portrayed as a global struggle between democracy and autocracy. If Ukraine manages to clear some of those hurdles, its forces could be in a position by July to retake large portions of land, according to the Royal United Services Institute's former director, Professor Michael Clarke.

Currently, western intelligence estimates Russia is taking 1,000 casualties a day. So there are good reasons to be optimistic about Ukraine’s capabilities. “And there was a proxy war overlaid onto it,” Morris told Al Jazeera, referring to the US support for Iraq in furtherance of its own interests in the Middle East. In early April, Ukrainian forces retook large areas around Kyiv, after Russia abandoned its push towards the capital. However, there is a risk if this were to happen that Russia would launch another invasion in future, once it had time to replenish its stocks. The course of the conflict in 2023 marked the fact that industrial-age warfare had returned too.
The first possibility establishes that Russian domination could lead to a world war if the invading country were to attack another Black Sea nation. The second option indicates that – after Ukraine is forced to agree to a ceasefire by ceding territory – widespread anger will bring ultranationalist groups to power and turn the country into an autocracy. The third option foresees Ukraine disintegrating into multiple autonomous regions.


Just ask Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose improbable assassination in Sarajevo sparked World War I. 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. As a result, Russia essentially stopped flying fighter jets over Ukraine. 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. After Russia first invaded in 2014, the U.S. military stepped up training for the Ukrainian military in western Ukraine.

It could prove the best chance to achieve the victory that Ukraine and the democratic world need soon, while making it both Putin- and Trump-proof. It showed a trend of increased losses for Russia as offensive activity ticked up. China now also knows the US playbook for responding to military interventions by its adversaries, but it probably also assumes that the United States would intervene militarily in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. From energy bills to the price of cars, our business reporter Lora Jones explains why prices could rise globally. As the world’s biggest marketplace, Europe has long punched below its weight.
Putin’s presidency began with the second Chechen war in 1999, when separatist rebels sought independence from Russia. The war, which ended with the Chechen capital razed to the ground and Chechen resistance largely stamped out, left a lasting imprint on Putin’s approach to regions seeking to break away from Russian influence, according to analysts. Unlike in the case of Serbia, experts do not foresee a scenario in which the US-led Western alliance would actively attack Russia. The war and Western sanctions have damaged Russia’s society and economy, but Moscow has blunted the worst effects and is unlikely to be left so weak as to be unable to pursue the war. Russia’s economy contracted by only a little more than 2 percent last year – far less than expected.

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