Maybe Russia cannot provide enough troops to cover such a vast country. Ukraine's defensive forces transform into an effective insurgency, well-motivated and supported by local populations. 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. Ukraine, meanwhile, would need years of western support to ensure its eastern border remains stable. Russia achieves a breakthrough in the east either very soon, before Ukraine gets its western weaponry in place in a few weeks, or after a Ukrainian counteroffensive fails. The invaders’ key advantage is the number of troops available – about 300,000, almost all of whom are already committed to Ukraine. Ukraine’s war reaches the one-year mark with no immediate end in sight. Both sides want to carry on fighting, and any negotiated peace looks a long way off. Without a critical mass of support, resistance to the Russian military will fall apart and Ukraine will lose the war. Here Are 3 Ways to End the War in Ukraine. One Might Actually Work. There may have been no lightning breakthroughs in 2023, but Ukraine can point to some gains this year. Kyiv has reclaimed more than half of the land Russia had captured since the start of the war in February 2022 and grabbed headlines by liberating villages and towns in the south and east. In https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-will-china-do-if-russia-invades-ukraine.html , Azerbaijani forces defeated Armenian troops and recaptured the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh, three decades after Baku had suffered a military defeat to Armenia. But as GOP lawmakers fight for immigration reform, particularly on the U.S. southern border, ahead of financial support for Ukraine, it would not be unreasonable to expect Biden to, at the very least, attempt to extend the conflict into 2025. Russia's goals are not confined to holding the occupied territories—they want to see a compliant political regime installed in Kyiv, and they still believe this is possible. At the very least, Putin is going to wait until the November 2024 election, to see if Donald Trump returns. Putin could respond to any Ukrainian efforts to claw back lost lands with air and missile strikes. Moscow has proved resourceful when it comes to building autonomy into critical goods, Lichfield explained. The rest is funding the Ukrainian government (this helps pay the salaries of Ukrainian government workers) and humanitarian aid to help the millions of Ukrainians who have been driven from their homes. That’s changed, with Germany now pledging to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks and approving other countries’ requests to follow suit. 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. While the West could warn Kyiv that it would stop supplies of weapons or financial support if Ukraine were to insist on defying the US or Europe, “this kind of threat is not credible”, Slantchev told Al Jazeera. These scenarios are not mutually exclusive - some of each could combine to produce different outcomes. And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that the United States and its allies will continue paying for Ukraine’s offensive operations for as long as it takes. Boris Nadezhdin: Putin's would-be opponent vows to end Ukraine war Watch how the rest of the world regards the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions. Expect any negotiated settlement to be fragile and reliant on third-party intervention. And don’t anticipate a dramatic finish, such as a Russian nuclear detonation in Ukraine or the overthrow of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Notably, in a reversal of perceptions a year ago, some experts could envision a decisive Ukrainian victory against Russia, but none forecasts a decisive Russian win against Ukraine. Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones. Before the war, Putin pushed for a neutral Ukraine that would foreswear all military alliances. That alliance’s decision, at its 2008 Bucharest summit, to open the door to that country (and Georgia) was irrevocable. A month after the Russian invasion began, Zelensky put neutrality on the table, but it was too late. Meet the Young Peruvians Fighting in Court for Climate Action In his October assessment, Snyder floated one scenario in which Ukrainian military victories prompt a power struggle in Moscow that leads Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, as Putin and his rivals judge that the armed forces loyal to them are most useful on the homefront. But what Snyder envisions is Putin prioritizing his political survival in Russia over his personal and ideological designs on Ukraine, not necessarily Putin’s removal from power. But many experts I turned to were not seriously concerned about such an outcome. Russia is throwing waves of recruits and mercenaries into close-quarters battles around towns like Bakhmut and Vuhledar. Russia began the war with what seemed to be a massive advantage by any imaginable measure—from gross domestic product (GDP) to numbers of warplanes, tanks, artillery, warships, and missiles. Yet six months on Putin does not give the appearance of having suffered long-term harm. The most recent reports suggests that a deal is getting closer in the Senate but it will not be finalised until later in January, assuming that there are not further delays. So, if you’re betting on a democratic Russia anytime soon, you’d better hope that the transformation happens peacefully. Even if the passage to democracy isn’t chaotic and violent, such a government’s first order of business wouldn’t be to evacuate all occupied territories. The combination of Ukraine fatigue and Russian military successes, however painfully and brutally gained, may be precisely what Vladimir Putin is betting on. The Western coalition of more than three dozen states is certainly formidable, but he’s savvy enough to know that Russia’s battlefield advantages could make it ever harder for the U.S. and its allies to maintain their unity. The possibility of negotiations with Putin has been raised in France, Italy, and Germany. Ukraine won’t be cut off economically or militarily by the West, but it could find Western support ever harder to count on as time passes, despite verbal assurances of solidarity. In these talks Russia demanded that Ukraine recognise Russia-occupied Crimea and grant independence to Luhansk and Donetsk. One factor hindering negotiations could be Ukraine's desire for close ties with, and possible membership of Nato, something Russia see as totally unacceptable. Peace talks between Ukraine and Russia began on Monday, February 28, 2022 just four days after the invasion. Ukraine expert Terrell Jermaine Starr recently told me, every step that Ukrainians took towards Europe came as a direct result of Russian aggression. I've also met displaced Ukrainians who have re-started their businesses in European countries, mostly Poland. One key question that could determine the war’s end game is how long Ukraine’s backers can keep up their arms donations to Kyiv. But another McCarthy concession — a procedure allowing 218 members to force a House floor vote on any bill — could present an opportunity for pro-Ukraine Republicans and Democrats to pass additional funding for Kyiv. It took 15 votes for McCarthy to secure the position, after which he appointed three Republicans who oppose Ukraine aid — Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas — to the Rules Committee, which controls legislation and debate on the House floor. He agreed to a House rules change that would allow any member to initiate a vote to remove him as speaker, forcing him to tread carefully even on issues that enjoy majority Republican support — such as Ukraine assistance. This meant however that progress was slow, giving the Russians time to reinforce areas coming under threat. According to a poll by the independent Razumkov Centre, a majority of Ukrainians said they believe Ukraine is heading in the right direction in light of the war. “Essentially once the West made a decision that Ukraine is important … it had to support them to the end, and that means the Ukrainians are the ones who will decide when they’re going to stop,” he said. Either side may act boldly if it winds up on the ropes and needs an exit strategy. I have a good, safe life and follow events there from the comfort of my New York apartment.
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