Difference between revisions of "When will the RussiaUkraine war end Experts offer their predictions"

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<p>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. These achievements are demonstrative of what can be accomplished when illegal aggressive actions are confronted. This situation is a far cry from Putin’s assertion that Russia’s subjugation of Ukraine would be accomplished within a matter of days and, almost two years on from the full scale invasion, Russia is now diplomatically diminished, aligning with North Korea and Iran. Balazs Orban, chief political aide to the prime minister, said Hungary sent a proposal to the EU over the weekend showing it was open to using the budget for the aid package if other "caveats" were added. "Putin," said a senior British military source on Tuesday, "is not about to attack Nato. He just wants to turn Ukraine into a vassal state like Belarus."</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>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.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>The public is bearing the costs of war in the form of inflation, economic decline and battlefield deaths.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>The military course of this war in 2024 will be determined in Moscow, Kyiv, Washington, Brussels, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang more than in Avdiivka, Tokmak, Kramatorsk or any of the devastated battlefields along the frontlines.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>But Smith also said ATACMS producer Lockheed Martin no longer makes the missiles, and the U.S. military still needs them in its stockpiles.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>He judges that continuing the war may be a greater threat to his leadership than the humiliation of ending it.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul><br /><br /><p>This includes overwhelming domestic support for joining NATO and the European Union, despite both blocs expressing hesitation to Ukraine's membership for decades preceding the war. Shortly before Russia invaded last February, less than a third of Ukrainians supported foreign boots on the ground in Ukraine. Conversely, that roughly tracks with the results of an Ipsos poll from January, which found about 7 in 10 people in Western countries think they should "avoid getting involved militarily" in Ukraine, while also "supporting sovereign countries when they are attacked by other countries." It could lead Russia to scale back, maybe even recognize this was a bad idea, perhaps going all the way out of the country or at least going back to the eastern provinces. The most likely end to the violence will not be an end to the war at all, but a ceasefire, says Greene. When the war in Ukraine first began, the fall of Kyiv, and the Ukrainian state more broadly, seemed highly likely.</p><br /><br /><h2>Ukraine breaks through</h2><br /><br /><p>Carl-Oskar Bohlin asked the public "have you considered whether you have time to join a voluntary defence organisation? If not - get moving!" His remarks were backed up by the country's top military commander, who said Sweden should prepare itself mentally. Last week, another senior Nato military chief said countries needed to be on alert "and expect the unexpected". Adm Rob Bauer, who heads the alliance's military committee, said the public needed to change their mindset for an era "when anything can happen at any time". Wars require the tacit approval and support of those on the home front. Regardless of a country’s government style, a leader is still dependent upon the support of a group of people, or coalition, to stay in power. Vladimir Putin depends on oligarchs, the Russian mafia and the military for his survival.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>Putin could respond to any Ukrainian efforts to claw back lost lands with air and missile strikes. An April estimate of the cost of rebuilding Ukraine ranged from $500 billion to $1 trillion, far beyond Kyiv’s means. Yet the campaign to conquer key cities—Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv—failed disastrously.</p><br /><br /><h3>Is UK conscription for a citizen army a realistic plan?</h3><br /><br /><p>"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. "The world has changed. There is no going back … we are in an entirely new era," he said. But Bremmer believes that Putin still perceives this kind of help "as acts of war taken by the United States and NATO allies against Russia, meriting retaliation." Other analysts warn of a "quagmire" — where there is no easy solution for what would likely be a heavily destroyed Ukraine, or for Russia — if an insurgency continued long term. "Ukrainians will resist long and hard even if the formal military battles end. And news 24/7 and the internet will expose Putin's brutality for all to see."</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Meanwhile, Ukraine’s biggest supporters, including the Biden administration, could soon find themselves preoccupied with economic and political challenges at home and ever less eager to keep billions of dollars in economic aid and weaponry flowing.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>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.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>So, in recent years, Ukrainians have reached further into their history to argue that Ukrainian independence existed before the fall of the Soviet Union, or even the Russian Empire before it.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>The most important question in all of this, Greene says, is what the west’s response will be because their priority is keeping Russia isolated at least to some degree to stop them from waging further war.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul><br /><br /><p>Would the repetition of the Mariupol tragedy in other Ukrainian cities make a frozen conflict more or less likely? The continued success of the Ukrainian army might damage the confidence of the Russian forces to challenge the state of affairs, while Ukraine would feel obliged to prevent a new wave of civilian deaths. The most likely scenario is a stalemate where both sides accept the facts on the ground, more or less as they exist today. [https://etextpad.com/ https://etextpad.com/] will shift towards a more defensive posture, abandoning its dreams of a swift conquest of the Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv.</p><br /><br /><h3>Government activity</h3><br /><br /><p>The United Kingdom will stand with Ukraine today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes. I look forward to working with you and your team over this trimester and note the rich programme of Security Dialogue topics that will be discussed during this period. Sadly, however, the overwhelming concern of this Forum remains Russia’s ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion of its sovereign neighbour has contravened international law and the underlying principles of this organisation.</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>It could even send troops to the three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>For example, the tactic of repurposing dishwasher electronics for weapons, mocked in the West as a sign of desperation, probably means “somebody thought about that from the beginning,” he said.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>This could lead to a situation where Ukraine capitulates, but this would take years.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day".</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul><br /><br /><p>No one can know for sure whether Europe and the United States are headed for a recession, but many economists and business leaders consider it likely. They’ve just begun to feel the economic blowback from the war and the sanctions imposed on Russia, pain that will only increase. While those sanctions have indeed hurt Russia, they’ve also contributed to skyrocketing energy and food prices in the West (even as Putin profits by selling his oil, gas, and coal at higher prices). The US inflation rate, at 8.6 percent last month, is the highest in 40 years, while the Congressional Budget Office has revised estimates of economic growth—3.1 percent this year— down to 2.2 percent for 2023 and 1.5 percent for 2024. All this as mid-term elections loom and President Biden’s approval ratings, now at 39.7 percent, continue to sink.</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>But Bremmer believes that Putin still perceives this kind of help "as acts of war taken by the United States and NATO allies against Russia, meriting retaliation."</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>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.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul><br /><br /><p>Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day". 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". There is nothing ‘normal’ in this reality; everyday innocent Ukrainian lives are lost as a consequence of Russia’s war of choice. Russia has continued to terrorise the Ukrainian civilian population, exemplified in its missile and drone attacks which struck residential areas in Kyiv and Kharkiv yesterday.</p><br /><br /><br /><br />
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<p>It is theoretically possible for the U.S. to sanction countries that maintain economic ties with Russia. 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.</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>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.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>I think that the Ukrainians are highly motivated and therefore are willing to tolerate very high costs.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>The fickle nature of the international media means that protracted conflicts quickly lose the world’s attention, if they ever had it to begin with.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul><br /><br /><p>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.</p><br /><br /><h2>What do the Ukrainian people want the world to know besides their need for our support and military aid? — Erik</h2><br /><br /><p>And long, exhaustive fighting carries its own risks, according to Benjamin Jensen, a war gaming expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That’s because the longer conflicts last, the more they exhaust finite resources and, hence, the parties are more willing to gamble. Defense News spoke with national security analysts, lawmakers and retired officials, asking each how the conflict could end.</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>But more generally it’s because the underlying dynamic is different from the short war.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>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.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Calling Putin a "war criminal" back in March and seeming to hint at the need for regime change in Moscow, but also reluctant this week to send Ukraine rocket systems "that can strike into Russia".</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul><br /><br /><p>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. I wrote about this recently, noting that we're seeing air battles daily, but pilots are rarely involved. It's perhaps the only thing more complicated than sanctions enforcement, and this question touches on both. Ukrainian replacement troops go through combat training on Feb. 24 in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.</p><br /><br /><h3>Ukraine invasion — explained</h3><br /><br /><p>The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw the return of major war to the European continent. The course of the conflict in 2023 marked the fact that industrial-age warfare had returned too. To indicate which parts of Ukraine are under control by Russian troops we are using daily assessments published by the Institute for the Study of War with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project. To show [https://notes.io/wiCrH https://notes.io/wiCrH] where advances are taking place we are also using updates from the UK Ministry of Defence and BBC research.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told Defense News that Ukraine would not strike Russian territory with longer-range weapons pledged by the United States. After imposing sanctions and export controls, Lichfield expects the West’s latest economic pressure point — oil price caps — to yield results because the Russian economy is so tightly linked to the energy market. “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. And the near-total control of information by the government is making dissent difficult.</p><br /><br /><h3>The economics of Russia’s war in Ukraine</h3><br /><br /><p>And the question you gotta ask yourself is why that is. Domestic politics and they still have plans and ideas and you know, they think they can teach Ukrainians some new information or hope that the west will fall apart. Hein Goemans I mean, some people are trying to pitch this as, oh, the United States versus Russia, which is a big mistake.</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>It may take a little bit longer, but it takes two sides to end the war.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Moscow has proved resourceful when it comes to building autonomy into critical goods, Lichfield explained.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Putin claimed in his end-of year news conference that 617,000 troops were currently active in Ukraine.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul><br /><br /><p>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. Johnson, writing in the Sunday Times, said the supply of weapons had to continue, and that it would be necessary to “preserve the viability of the Ukrainian state” by providing financial support “to pay wages, run schools, deliver aid and begin reconstruction”. “Ukrainian forces have likely suffered desertions in recent weeks. However, Russian morale highly likely remains especially troubled.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones. Ukraine shoots most of these down with its air defense missiles. For Ukraine, the problem is it's running low on these missiles. If it runs out, then Russia could unleash its fighting planes.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>But if the west decides they’re not gonna support Ukraine fully anymore, then Ukraine is in a really tough spot and they’ll have to dramatically lower aims. There’s no way they’re gonna push back Russia to the 1991 borders and they may have to accept the four annexed areas as part of Russia forever. "Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices." All of this, of course, assumes that Russia’s war doesn’t escalate beyond Ukraine.</p><br /><br /><ul><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>The will of the people are getting bombed is hardened.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>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.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>The Week is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>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.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br />  <br /><br /> <li>Johnson, writing in the Sunday Times, said the supply of weapons had to continue, and that it would be necessary to “preserve the viability of the Ukrainian state” by providing financial support “to pay wages, run schools, deliver aid and begin reconstruction”.</li><br /><br />  <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></ul>

Revision as of 06:04, 10 February 2024

It is theoretically possible for the U.S. to sanction countries that maintain economic ties with Russia. 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.











  • And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place.








  • 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.








  • I think that the Ukrainians are highly motivated and therefore are willing to tolerate very high costs.








  • The fickle nature of the international media means that protracted conflicts quickly lose the world’s attention, if they ever had it to begin with.










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.



What do the Ukrainian people want the world to know besides their need for our support and military aid? — Erik



And long, exhaustive fighting carries its own risks, according to Benjamin Jensen, a war gaming expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That’s because the longer conflicts last, the more they exhaust finite resources and, hence, the parties are more willing to gamble. Defense News spoke with national security analysts, lawmakers and retired officials, asking each how the conflict could end.











  • But more generally it’s because the underlying dynamic is different from the short war.








  • 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.








  • Calling Putin a "war criminal" back in March and seeming to hint at the need for regime change in Moscow, but also reluctant this week to send Ukraine rocket systems "that can strike into Russia".










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. I wrote about this recently, noting that we're seeing air battles daily, but pilots are rarely involved. It's perhaps the only thing more complicated than sanctions enforcement, and this question touches on both. Ukrainian replacement troops go through combat training on Feb. 24 in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.



Ukraine invasion — explained



The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw the return of major war to the European continent. The course of the conflict in 2023 marked the fact that industrial-age warfare had returned too. To indicate which parts of Ukraine are under control by Russian troops we are using daily assessments published by the Institute for the Study of War with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project. To show https://notes.io/wiCrH where advances are taking place we are also using updates from the UK Ministry of Defence and BBC research.





The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told Defense News that Ukraine would not strike Russian territory with longer-range weapons pledged by the United States. After imposing sanctions and export controls, Lichfield expects the West’s latest economic pressure point — oil price caps — to yield results because the Russian economy is so tightly linked to the energy market. “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. And the near-total control of information by the government is making dissent difficult.



The economics of Russia’s war in Ukraine



And the question you gotta ask yourself is why that is. Domestic politics and they still have plans and ideas and you know, they think they can teach Ukrainians some new information or hope that the west will fall apart. Hein Goemans I mean, some people are trying to pitch this as, oh, the United States versus Russia, which is a big mistake.











  • It may take a little bit longer, but it takes two sides to end the war.








  • Moscow has proved resourceful when it comes to building autonomy into critical goods, Lichfield explained.








  • Putin claimed in his end-of year news conference that 617,000 troops were currently active in Ukraine.








  • And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents.










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. Johnson, writing in the Sunday Times, said the supply of weapons had to continue, and that it would be necessary to “preserve the viability of the Ukrainian state” by providing financial support “to pay wages, run schools, deliver aid and begin reconstruction”. “Ukrainian forces have likely suffered desertions in recent weeks. However, Russian morale highly likely remains especially troubled.







Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones. Ukraine shoots most of these down with its air defense missiles. For Ukraine, the problem is it's running low on these missiles. If it runs out, then Russia could unleash its fighting planes.







But if the west decides they’re not gonna support Ukraine fully anymore, then Ukraine is in a really tough spot and they’ll have to dramatically lower aims. There’s no way they’re gonna push back Russia to the 1991 borders and they may have to accept the four annexed areas as part of Russia forever. "Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices." All of this, of course, assumes that Russia’s war doesn’t escalate beyond Ukraine.











  • The will of the people are getting bombed is hardened.








  • Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all.








  • 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 Week is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.








  • 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.








  • Johnson, writing in the Sunday Times, said the supply of weapons had to continue, and that it would be necessary to “preserve the viability of the Ukrainian state” by providing financial support “to pay wages, run schools, deliver aid and begin reconstruction”.