Mr Johnson promised to hit Russia with a “massive” package of sanctions designed to “hobble” the economy in Moscow. This is because Nato uses a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party. If Ukraine was part of Nato, the military alliance which is made up of 30 member states, including the US and UK, every Nato nation would have to launch an armed attack against Russia. If war broke out in Ukraine and Russian forces occupied large swathes of the country, many civilians might flee. Refusal can mean a jail sentence, though there is the option of civilian service out of uniform too. It could even send troops to the three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. The numerical might of the Russian army, for all its shortcomings, is not in Ukraine's favour. Downing Street has dismissed a warning from the head of the British army that the UK public must be prepared to take up arms in a war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia because today’s professional military is too small. But if Ukraine’s experience is anything to go by, the threat posed by a common enemy could have a unifying effect. Kyiv’s politicians used to be notoriously fractious – not least because of divisions between the pro and anti-Russian camps. Britain has also allowed ammunition supplies to dwindle to “dangerously low levels,” according to a Parliamentary Defence Committee report. Gen Sir Richard Barrons, the former head of the British Joint Forces Command, told the committee that he doubted there were “sufficient munitions to sustain a high-intensity conflict for more than about a week”. Subscribe to The Week Forces are on standby in eastern Europe, and Nato is working with Ukraine to modernise its forces and protect it against cyber attacks. The foreign secretary also warned last week that harsh UK sanctions could have far-reaching consequences. Here’s how the war will affect the UK, from potential military action to sanctions and gas prices. But without political support, the mindset of a country that does not feel like it is about to go to war is unlikely to change. Nato is unwilling to send troops into Ukraine itself although the UK has supplied around 2,000 anti-tank missiles to the country. Russia has now dug in and consolidated in eastern Ukraine, consequently, a war of attrition is under way. The Russian civil aviation regulator today announced a ban on British airlines landing at Russian airports due to “the unfriendly decisions by the UK aviation authorities”, the BBC reported. Recent assessments by the ISW show Russian forces have made advances north of Bakhmut. The city of Bakhmut, which has endured some of the heaviest fighting of the war, has been under Russian control for several months and, although Ukraine gained some ground in the surrounding areas over the summer, the battles continue. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-did-liz-truss-have-to-say-about-ukraine.html is sometimes described as the gateway to the city of Donetsk, which has been occupied by Russia and its proxy forces since 2014. Taking Avdiivka - which lies close by - would allow Russia to push the front line back, making it harder for the Ukrainian forces to retake the territory. Will the UK go to war with Russia? Ukraine has not seen attacks as heavy as this since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. Since launching its invasion Russia has never stopped attacking Ukraine by the air, but this latest series of strikes marks a deadly escalation. Ukraine has mobilised the information sphere to tremendous domestic and international advantage, says Justin Crump. This has come from the top down, aided by (President) Zelensky's formidable media savvy. While it is hard to get an accurate picture of casualty figures, even the more conservative estimates made by the Pentagon put Russian combat deaths at more than 7,000. Nato says its forces are on standby and more ships and fighter jets are being sent to the region. On Tuesday night President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched 500 missiles and drones against Ukraine in just five days. The overall effect means Finland can muster one of Europe's largest armies. It comes as the forces struggle to retain female personnel amid a sex harassment crisis engulfing the military. Russia is Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas, providing around 35 per cent of the gas used across the continent. But Ukraine is not a part of Nato, so the Western response to Russia’s invasion will initially focus on sanctions. It is extremely unlikely that the UK will go to war with Russia any time soon. All of this disruption could massively increase the price of gas in Europe and, consequently, the UK. Europe itself could restrict future gas flows by abandoning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which would run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. The decision of India’s Tata Steel this month to shut its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot, for example, means that Britain may soon be unable to make steel from scratch. Although the UK only depends on Russia for around three per cent of our gas supply, Europe is heavily reliant, with the country accounting for nearly 40 per cent of gas used by EU members. The cap is adjusted twice a year in line with Ofgem in line with wholesale price changes and is already due to rise by £693 to £1,971 in April. 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. The UK aspires to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence, and Mr Shapps has said he would like to increase this to 3 per cent, though he failed to set a date last week for the target. On Tuesday, Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, met with the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, where he urged others to join the UK in increasing their aid. The British public will be called up to fight if the UK goes to war because the military is too small, the head of the Army is to warn. One senior Conservative MP told the BBC he did not think Rishi Sunak had fully appreciated the threat posed by Russia. 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. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian revolution and Pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, the United Kingdom has actively supported Ukraine and publicly condemned Russian actions. We won't know for some time how badly Ukraine's landscape, nature and climate action will be impacted by the war. President Putin recognises the independence of the two Russian-backed separatists areas in eastern Ukraine and says troops will be sent to support them. Russian forces were bombarding Kharkiv, and they had taken territory in the east and south as far as Kherson, and surrounded the port city of Mariupol. We then set out how the economic shock from the invasion had been reflected in our forecast as well as several potential channels through which the invasion could affect the UK economy that our forecast did not explicitly capture.
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