Notes

Zelenskyy on Trump: If someone can really end a war in 24 hours, I'd be thrilled
A visible level of U.S., European, and other donor unity and commitment to planning and aid will be critical to both building Ukrainian morale and convincing Russia that it cannot outlast such support. Giving Ukraine the necessary long-term mix of civil support and aid requires at least as much planning and outside commitment as does military aid. There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine. The Russian air force - which has played a low-key role so far - launches devastating airstrikes.

The chaotic collapse of Kabul may have taken days, but the collapse of the Afghan government and its forces was triggered by U.S. failures in strategy and leadership over two decades and four years of peace efforts. When a sufficient number of Putin’s coalition privately turn against the war, this will pressure Putin to end the war or risk his position of power. Given what’s at stake — not just the survival of Ukraine but of the whole international order — that would be risky. Less than 12 months ago, few could have imagined the invasion continuing until today, much less predicted its conclusion.
The end of fighting in the southern port city of Mariupol has freed up Russian troops for redeployment elsewhere and allowed them to intensify their onslaught in the east. Second, he controls the state media apparatus and has censored other media organisations, limiting the information available to the general public. Third, since there are not free and fair elections, there is no way other than mass mobilisation and revolution for the Russian people to overthrow Putin. There are predictions aplenty that Russia's war on Ukraine will persist. Kremlin regime change, a Russian army collapse, or a Ukrainian win are possible.

Five possible outcomes
A conflict where a major nuclear power and energy exporter violated the sovereignty of a country that is a keystone of global food security was never going to be contained to just two countries. Ultimately, it appears that this war will not end quickly, as it will take a considerable amount of time for either side to make the other give up. Either the Russian military’s transition to indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets succeeds in eroding Ukrainian resistance, or battlefield casualties and domestic economic woes succeed in defeating Russia’s will to fight.

“Serbia’s war against Kosovo was ended because outside powers got involved,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to NATO’s bombardment of Serbia in 1999. The Wagner mutiny, and Mr Prigozhin's denunciation of the Kremlin's justifications for the war have, they said, removed what remained of Mr Putin's chances of hanging on. Says more than 8 million Ukrainians fled to Europe since the start of the invasion. Meanwhile, Russian demands for Ukraine’s demilitarisation and neutrality are a “non-starter”, according to Slantchev.
The best precedent for this is perhaps the Helms–Burton Act, which extended U.S. sanctions on Cuba toward any foreign company doing business with both Cuba and the U.S. at the same time. When President Bill Clinton signed that law in 1996, several countries accused the U.S. of violating their sovereignty, passing their own laws to make the U.S. regulation effectively unenforceable. 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. 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. BBC correspondent James Waterhouse said Russia had increased its artillery and air strikes as well as missile attacks - gaining ground mile by mile in Luhansk while the Ukrainians are forced to retreat.

Why Putin won’t back down
However, the man dubbed "Putin's chef" has also been a vocal opponent of the Kremlin's inner circle in recent months in a sign that power may be shifting among Russia's political class. Mr Prigozhin's guns for hire have played a critical role in keeping the war going against a backdrop of morale problems, strategic blunders and lack of adequate training. Both sides could engage in a "step-by-step approach to a temporary peace", unfolding in a similar way to previous conflicts, including Cyprus after 1974 and Korea after 1954, Professor Clarke added.

Vladimir Putin’s initial miscalculation that he could overrun Ukraine in a matter of days was a classic case of informational asymmetry; it was also a classic instance of a repressive regime being fed poor information by its own people. Everyone agreed that we were faced with a “classic” credible-commitment problem. Russia claimed that it could not trust Ukraine to not become, in essence, a NATO state; Ukraine, for its part, had no reason to trust a Russian regime that had repeatedly broken promises and invaded it in February with no provocation.


Meanwhile, Ukraine had to pretty much start from scratch, establishing its own treaties and erecting embassies for the first time without approval from Moscow. Russian Communist supporters hold flags including one of the Soviet Union, as they take part in a rally next to the Karl Marx monument, marking the "Defender of the Fatherland Day," the former "Day of the Soviet Army", in downtown Moscow on Feb. 23. The money Congress has already approved will help cover Ukraine's needs for the next several months. But at some point later this year, President Biden is certain to seek more money for Ukraine, and we'll see how the Republicans in the House respond. Yet one could argue that Putin is more interested in gathering the lands of the Russian empire. In fact, in his speeches about Ukraine, he criticizes the Soviet leadership for creating Ukraine, the Soviet republic that later became an independent country, on a whim.

Here Are 3 Ways to End the War in Ukraine. One Might Actually Work.
There were in fact already obvious tensions in the Russian high command. General Sergei Surovikin, in overall charge of the Russian forces, was tough and competent. But he was demoted in January, presumably because he was too defence-minded. Instead Commander-in-Chief Valery Gerasimov took over direct responsibility for the Russian campaign. The Russian offensives at the start of the year were unimpressive with crude and unimaginative tactics. Little progress was made, and then at high cost, with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group to the fore in Soledar and Bakhmut.

An effective grand strategy may well require the United States and Europe to commit themselves to conducting the equivalent of political and economic warfare against Russia over a period that could last years. It may also entail the seizure of Russian assets to help finance both the fighting and recovery. The Ukraine war is a proxy war only to the extent that U.S. and European forces do not directly engage in combat, and even those limits may be impossible to sustain if Russia escalates to major strategic attacks or even the most limited use of tactical nuclear weapons. An effective grand strategy requires planning for at least another year of major combat and the possibility of further years to come. Rushing in new weapons, equipment, and ammunition can accomplish a great deal, but the United States and European states need to take a much harder look at how to support and sustain Ukraine’s forces and civil population over time. Ukraine has already shown it has far more unity, effective governance, and capable military forces than Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and it is a different case in many ways.


The classic example from the First World War was the Bolsheviks’ refusal, in the wake of their seizure of power in Russia, to continue the fight against Germany; proclaiming “neither war nor peace,” they simply left the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. But the Germans, instead of accepting this, kept advancing into Russia. Only after the Bolsheviks agreed to even harsher terms than had been proposed just three weeks earlier did the Germans agree to their exit from the war. Yes, Russian forces could try to go on the offensive again, but the likely futility of attacking fortified Ukrainian positions now backed by the threat of NATO firepower would be a strong deterrent. Meanwhile, https://matzen-larsen.thoughtlanes.net/what-happens-if-the-uk-is-targeted-by-nuclear-weapons-how-britain-would-respond-to-a-russia-attack on Russia would remain; its economic and military strength would continue to erode; and Putin could only watch as his frozen assets abroad are drawn down to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Yet, the United States does not have to take a formal official position to create the proper groundwork. Should Ukraine and its allies simply carry on, hoping for a breakthrough in 2025 or beyond? His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular the war started by Moscow. Putin illegally annexed four territories from Ukraine in September and now presents Ukraine's efforts — backed by the West — to take back its own territory as a fascist attack on the Russian homeland. In the event, it did lead to the U.S. entering the war, and the defeat of Germany, and the Kaiser’s removal from power. 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 at least has the advantage that it can pursue a consistent approach to force modernization, interoperability, adopting “emerging and disruptive” technologies, joint all-domain operations, and strategy and tactics. NATO also needs to work together to create joint, mission-oriented forces tailored to given regions. These forces should include forward defenses that are not tied to aging Soviet weapons systems, and that deal with Russia’s growing precision strike forces—many of which can carry both conventional and tactical nuclear warheads. Russia did make major military mistakes at the start of the war, and its initial offensives were failures. Putin seems to have assumed that Ukraine had only made limited progress in improving its forces since 2014, and that Russia could repeat its success in occupying Crimea. Russian forces are learning through bitter experience, and Putin is clearly still prepared to fight a brutal war of attrition on the ground.

“Everything I have come to learn about the will and determination of the Ukrainians leads me to conclude retaking Crimea is within reach, and they need the artillery that will enable hitting targets — the sites of missiles destroying infrastructure in Ukraine,” he said. But it may not be implausible if the people who have benefited from Mr Putin no longer believe he can defend their interests. European security was also fundamentally changed by Russia's invasion on February 24 and many states outside of Russia and Ukraine have a stake in its outcome, analysts said.
Then, at its July, 2024 summit in Washington, NATO would invite Ukraine to join the Western alliance, guaranteeing the security of all territory controlled by the Ukrainian government at that point under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. At the same time, if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that Ukraine may not achieve total military success in the next year or two. The Russian military, though battered and demoralized, has remained resilient, even against advanced Western weapons and tactics.


And while we have no right to tell Ukrainians to stop fighting before their country is whole, we also have no right to expect them to keep fighting at any cost. 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.

Homepage: https://matzen-larsen.thoughtlanes.net/what-happens-if-the-uk-is-targeted-by-nuclear-weapons-how-britain-would-respond-to-a-russia-attack