U S and Britain reportedly believe the Ukraine war could last 1020 years become a Russian quagmire

At the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, US intelligence assessed that Russia could conquer Kyiv in just three days. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been highly critical of the EU's financial and military aid for Ukraine and has maintained close ties with Russia. A little earlier, we told you about a report in the Financial Times that the EU was proposing to sabotage Hungary's economy if Budapest blocks further aid for Ukraine this week. Peter Szijjarto has arrived in Ukraine for talks with senior officials today. This could see states like Poland and the Baltics decide to aid Ukraine on their own, which "might leave NATO's eastern front vulnerable and cause a crisis within the EU and European NATO".

I think that the Ukrainians are highly motivated and therefore are willing to tolerate very high costs. I mean, the Kremlin has a very effective propaganda apparatus and is successful in inculcating some belief among the ordinary Russians that this is a just war, and thereby driving up the willingness of the Russian people to suffer costs. In the end, I think that the Russians are not willing to suffer as many costs as the Ukrainians are. Gideon Rachman How do you assess the incentives of the Ukrainians? I mean, I suppose we hear from them and it’s difficult to dispute it, that they have no incentive to settle because they feel they’re fighting for their freedom and for their statehood. Gideon Rachman I mean, I think, you know, we talk about the first world war, but when you listen to what Putin says, the war that preoccupies him is the second world war.

The ripple effects of Russia's war in Ukraine continue to change the world

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has focussed the West's military minds. He highlighted numerous threats, but there is one common thread amid all these warnings - Russia. Shoigu added that Russia could achieve its military goals with "consistent implementation of the measures in the action until 2025." However, Mr Orban's political director said this morning that Hungary was open to using the EU budget to allow further aid for Ukraine. A spate of Ukraine-linked attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure have reportedly led Moscow's energy ministry to propose restricting flights over energy facilities. Meanwhile, https://telegra.ph/Discovering-the-Fox-News-Studio-Location-in-NYC-04-15 '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.

• 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.









• Russia has shown that it is committed to a long conflict in Ukraine and that it has the capacity to send hundreds of thousands of men to war.









• It also said that it monitored the launch points of missiles and their delivery logistics, especially through military aircraft, to reduce to threat of attack.









• Ukrainians also make a calculation it’s just worth the cost.









• His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular the war started by Moscow.

While the bipartisan majority of lawmakers support arming Kyiv, 57 Republicans voted against a $40 billion emergency aid supplemental in May. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made several concessions to those Ukraine aid skeptics to secure the votes to win his protracted speakership battle. But Smith also said ATACMS producer Lockheed Martin no longer makes the missiles, and the U.S. military still needs them in its stockpiles. Smith indicated he disagrees with the Biden administration’s decision not to send long-range missiles, noting every Ukrainian official assured him they would not use them to attack Russia. “It would have to get pretty bad for the Russians to get there,” he said, adding that there’s no way of knowing how many reserves the government stashed away after years of fat checks from energy sales.

Joe Biden vows Russia will ‘never’ prevail in Ukraine

Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson Andriy Yusov, in comments to Reuters, reiterated on Thursday that - contrary to practice before previous PoW swaps - Kyiv had received no requests from Russia to refrain from attacks in the airspace where the plane was downed. Question marks and suspicions surround the shooting down Wednesday of a Russian military transport plane that was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war and nine Russians. “Ukrainian forces have likely suffered desertions in recent weeks. However, Russian morale highly likely remains especially troubled.

But there is no smooth drop-off — most of them end relatively quickly. Ukrainian military officials have conceded that hopes and expectations of a great breakthrough in the counteroffensive were not met. They predict intense fighting is likely to continue into the next year but say Kyiv's forces are unlikely to launch any more counteroffensives. Russia, meanwhile, is likely to focus on consolidating the territory it has already seized, particularly in eastern Ukraine. A Russian lawmaker suggested that a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war that was shot down over the Belgorod region Wednesday was part of a two-plane convoy en route to a prisoner swap with Ukraine. The Ukrainian leadership knew very well that, according to established practice, today Ukrainian military personnel would be transported by military transport aircraft to the Belgorod airfield for exchange.

Russian Ministry of Defense statement on plane crash

When he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s original plan envisioned Russian forces capturing Kyiv within as little as three days. "I'm afraid we need to steel ourselves for a long war," he wrote. "Time is the vital factor. Everything will depend on whether Ukraine can strengthen its ability to defend its soil faster than Russia can renew its capacity to attack." And in a stark warning, the newly appointed head of the British Army said the UK and allies needed to be capable of winning a ground war with Russia.

Russian forces are already trying to slow down tanks in Ukraine with mines, trenches, and pyramidical, concrete “dragon’s teeth,” a type of fortification not seen in combat since World War II. Ukrainian forces, once equipped and trained for combined arms warfare and tank tactics, will be “designed to punch a hole through a defensive network,” Donahoe predicted. “I would love to think the kinetic phase could end in 2023, but I suspect we could be looking at another three years with this scale of fighting,” Roberts said. Russia was not present at the discussions, however, and U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby stated ahead of the talks that the White House did not expect any "tangible deliverables." It's become clear that the counteroffensive won't produce quick results and that success — however that might be measured in terms of retaking Russian-occupied territory — is not guaranteed. 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.

• We’re gonna win, we’re going to win.” And finally, reality and truth hit him smack in the face that they couldn’t win and they wouldn’t win.









• So that’s the only strategy that I can see Putin really using nuclear weapons.









• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv will fully investigate the circumstances around the shooting down of a Russian military transport plane allegedly carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on Wednesday.









• Some analysts say Kyiv would lack leverage if it entered peace negotiations now, with the result likely being “peace” as dictated exclusively by Moscow.

"Ukraine may shift tactics to deal with a downturn in Western aid, but I don't believe they will surrender." "However, that does not mean that there are likely to be serious peace talks and a possible end to the war in 2024. Russia blamed Ukraine for what it called the "barbaric" shooting down of the Russian military transport plane over the border Belgorod region, killing all 65 Ukrainian POWs on board and nine Russians. "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. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov responded to Zelenskyy's comments Thursday, saying "if he means an international investigation into the criminal actions of the Kiev regime, it is definitely needed," news agency Interfax reported. Russia’s battlefield losses are so huge that western officials doubt it has the capacity to mount an offensive on the same scale again.

• He was one of a group of prominent bloggers who have built up large online audiences as cheerleaders for Russia's war in Ukraine, while sometimes criticising its tactics.









• President Macron of France has spoken to President Putin on the phone.









• Ukraine expert Terrell Jermaine Starr recently told me, "every step that Ukrainians took towards Europe came as a direct result of Russian aggression."









• Separately, Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement that they would continue to "control the airspace to destroy the terrorist threat" of strikes crossing the border from Belgorod into Ukraine's Kherson region.









• Ukraine confirmed an exchange of prisoners was scheduled for Wednesday but one did not take place.

Ukraine's army said Wednesday that it would continue to "control the airspace" to reduce the threat of missiles, "including in the Belgorod-Kharkiv direction," after a Russian military transport plane crashed in the Russian border region of Belgorod. Under this scenario, Russia escalates its military operations. There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine.

Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street,New York,NY 10036. "There may be an effort to create it but the Ukrainians are not going to go gently into the good night. They are going to fight like hell." From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. The second thing to keep in mind here is that you must believe that any deal you make will stick, so there won’t be drastic changes in the future which will give one side an advantage and they will renege on the deal. The thing that is striking is that there is a cap on Ukrainian aims.