When will the RussiaUkraine war end Experts offer their predictions

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.









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• 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”.