Such initiatives might take place before the Russian army could train and equip a large second echelon force, with the aim of conducting a renewed offensive against Kyiv or Kharkiv. Ukraine disrupted Russia's operations around occupied Crimea, damaging Russian radars, air defense and ships on the Black Sea. Ukrainians troops have also broken through Russian defenses on the Dnipro River. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-is-china-saying-about-ukraine.html don't think people in the U.S. should assume that Ukraine's continuing efforts to dislodge the Russians hinge entirely on U.S. or even West European actions, said Rachel Epstein, professor of International Relations and European Politics at the University of Denver. 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. A lot was riding on Ukraine’s offensive, including the added value that might result from western equipment transfers and training programmes. Ukraine's counteroffensive is likely to make some progress in the remainder of this year, Barrons said — but nowhere near enough to end the occupation. The first - which would be the most optimistic from Kyiv’s perspective - is that Ukrainian forces successfully move towards Mariupol on the Black Sea coast, cutting off Russian forces from the southern part of the country. One year after full-scale war returned to Europe for the first time since World War II, the invasion of Ukraine grinds on with no end in sight. He has won several presidential elections comfortably, but in recent years no serious opposition has been allowed. The worst outcome would be, “at the cost of enormous losses”, the liberation of all of Ukraine, which will “remain in ruins with a population that mostly hates us” and a “redemption” that would take more than a decade. He wanted to take (what were claimed to be) the former Russian parts back into Russia and turn the rest into a friendly buffer state. From this perspective Russia remains a long way from a sustainable victory. Commenting on an ongoing war is difficult, especially for someone not close to the front lines. This is why, as I noted in last year’s assessment, my preference is “to talk about trends, possibilities, and developments coming into view.” Wars pass through stages, as fortunes shift, and the challenges of supply and reinforcement change. Do you think that we will eventually take action against countries that purchase oil and other products from Russia? — Harris The obvious strategy is to try to break the road and rail corridor linking Russia proper to occupied Crimea, so cutting off the peninsula from its hinterland, with an attack towards Melitopol or Berdansk. Combine that with another attack on the now repaired 12-mile (19km) Kerch Bridge to the Russian mainland and Crimea would be increasingly isolated and vulnerable. Ukraine is assembling a force of more than 100 western Leopard 1 and 2 tanks, plus others, and a similar number of armoured vehicles that it hopes to use whenever the spring muddy season eases, to smash through Russia’s defensive lines in a D-day offensive. Ukraine, Jensen suggested, might try a spectacular special operation to assassinate a Kremlin official, or Russia could decide to use — or simply test — nuclear weapons. “Even technologically advanced, wealthy states in the Middle East eventually reached a point where they’re lobbing missiles at civilian cities, openly using chemical weapons and fighting in waves — just people rushing across the field getting shot at,” Jensen said. 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. And they said winning will depend on a Congress with the resolve to ensure continued support to Ukraine. Putin's commitment There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine. The Russian air force - which has played a low-key role so far - launches devastating airstrikes. Massive cyber-attacks sweep across Ukraine, targeting key national infrastructure. President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile. President Putin declares victory and withdraws some forces, leaving enough behind to maintain some control. And that has direct consequences for the future of the war in Ukraine. As a guide to what was to come this was, I’m afraid to say, pretty poor, not least because of the starting assumption that Ukrainian commanders would be aware that frontal assaults normally end badly and so would avoid. Dr Gorana Grgic, senior lecturer in the Discipline of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, says if there are not major breakthroughs in the Ukrainian counteroffensive, it's difficult to see the two sides negotiating. This [Russia] is a terrorist country whose leader is an inadequate person who has lost connection with reality. The world must conclude that it's impossible to have any kind of serious relationship with that country. I think the countdown has started, said Andriy Yermak, President Zelensky's closest adviser. The drama over the border in Russia has hardened the view in Kyiv that Mr Putin's time as Russia's president is coming to an end. Ukraine says corrupt officials stole $40 million of weapons money Russian and Ukrainian forces have essentially been locked in a slow, grinding fight since November, particularly around the gateway to the north and central parts of Luhansk, as the war shifted into positional warfare. In a two-hour address on Tuesday night, Vladimir Putin gave no indication the war would end any time soon, promising to continue Russia's offensive against its neighbour step by step. But even if this occurs, that doesn’t mean the war itself will end with Putin’s downfall. Ukraine's counteroffensive is likely to make some progress in the remainder of this year, Barrons said — but nowhere near enough to end the occupation. The war between Russia and Ukraine entered a new phase this summer when Kyiv launched its much-anticipated counteroffensive, and there were hopes Ukraine would regain the upper hand. Mykhailo Podolyak, another close adviser to President Zelensky, agreed there were several groups of people who want to take power in Russia. Other senior officials in Kyiv say they are convinced that Mr Putin is opposed by informal but organised networks of disenchanted insiders. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made several concessions to those Ukraine aid skeptics to secure the votes to win his protracted speakership battle. Mr Danilov said they included security forces, officials and representatives of Russia's oligarchs, who believe that Mr Putin's decision to launch a full invasion of Ukraine in February last year has been a personal disaster for them as well as a threat to Russia. On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian forces attacked Ukraine without frozen ground to support their armored vehicles, which meant they had to stick to roads, where they stood out as easy targets. We asked three military analysts how they think events may unfold in the coming 12 months. Both sides are burning through arsenal at breakneck speed, setting off a mad scramble for remaining Soviet-era equipment such as S-300 air defence missiles, T-72 tanks and artillery shells. In Syria, where it has been propping up President Bashar al-Assad, Russia has used a cycle of offensives followed by ceasefires to slowly split and crush the opposition. As Russia’s military campaign grinds on, experts weigh in on the most likely scenarios going forward. The price we pay is in money, while the price the Ukrainians pay is in blood. If authoritarian regimes see that force is rewarded, we will all pay a much higher price, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of last year. The conflict is “already a long war when compared to other interstate conflicts, and wars of this kind tend to cluster as either being relatively short—lasting no more than weeks or a few months—or averaging several years in duration,” Kofman told me. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has found that since 1946, more than half of interstate wars like the one in Ukraine have ended in less than a year, and that when such wars persist for more than a year, they last more than a decade on average. Some analysts believe that the fear of escalation is due to Russia having nuclear weapons — the fear of loose nukes. Under Article 5 of the military alliance's charter, an attack on one member is an attack on all. But Mr Putin might take the risk if he felt it was the only way of saving his leadership. If he was, perhaps, facing defeat in Ukraine, he might be tempted to escalate further. We now know the Russian leader is willing to break long-standing international norms. This week, Mr Putin put his nuclear forces on a higher level of alert. But it was a reminder that Russian doctrine allows for the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. However, the man dubbed Putin's chef has also been a vocal opponent of the Kremlin's inner circle in recent months in a sign that power may be shifting among Russia's political class. Mr Prigozhin's guns for hire have played a critical role in keeping the war going against a backdrop of morale problems, strategic blunders and lack of adequate training. Both sides could engage in a step-by-step approach to a temporary peace, unfolding in a similar way to previous conflicts, including Cyprus after 1974 and Korea after 1954, Professor Clarke added. Ukraine could be in a strong position to negotiate once it gets back all of its territory, including most of what it lost in the Donbas in 2014, with special arrangements made for plebiscites, Professor Clarke said. [Russia is] facing three or four generations, 60 or 80 years, of guerilla war, because they're up against a population of 44 million people who are now completely and utterly Ukrainian men, Professor Clarke said. He wanted to take (what were claimed to be) the former Russian parts back into Russia and turn the rest into a friendly buffer state. This Swedish Air Force handout image from March 2, 2022, shows Russian fighter jets violating Swedish airspace east of the Swedish Baltic Sea island of Gotland. The Kremlin maintains that elections are fair and he is genuinely popular. To put a twist on an old Yiddish expression, people predict, and war laughs. Military experts warn that this means the war is likely to be prolonged, putting immense pressure on Ukraine to fight for several more years to come, potentially, and on its international partners to commit billions of dollars more in military, humanitarian and financial resources. In the course of the past year, Putin’s domestic propaganda strategy has morphed from a message of “fight the Nazis” in Ukraine to “fight the West” there, said Stefan Meister, a Russia and Eastern Europe expert at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations. “The narrative is the great struggle of the Cold War,” he said, a framing that has helped to attract new recruits. But the sizable swaths of terrain Ukraine wants to liberate will take time, and to even build the necessary forces will take six months, Donahoe estimated. 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. The challenge now is training and equipping an armored force big enough and sophisticated enough to envelop Russia’s fighting force.
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