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. People often accuse Putin of wanting to resurrect the Soviet Union. Yet one could argue that Putin is more interested in gathering the lands of the Russian empire. In fact, in his speeches about Ukraine, he criticizes the Soviet leadership for creating Ukraine, the Soviet republic that later became an independent country, on a whim. 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. 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.
- But it noted that US officials had said they were unaware of any such proposals and that they had no sign that the Russian president was serious about looking to bring his forces' invasion of Ukraine to a close.
- For a war that has defied expectations, those questions might seem impossible to answer.
- Andrew Cottey, a professor in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork, gave Euronews three possible outcomes for the war.
- Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didn’t yield the immediate results for which experts hoped.
- 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.
Smith indicated he disagrees with the Biden administration’s decision not to send long-range missiles, noting every Ukrainian official assured him they would not use them to attack Russia. “Everything I have come to learn about the will and determination of the Ukrainians leads me to conclude retaking Crimea is within reach, and they need the artillery that will enable hitting targets — the sites of missiles destroying infrastructure in Ukraine,” he said. 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. An inability to do so could foster economic discontent capable of turning public opinion against the war, Lichfield told Defense News. Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didn’t yield the immediate results for which experts hoped.
Italy's Jannik Sinner wins Australian Open in five sets
President Putin declares victory and withdraws some forces, leaving enough behind to maintain some control. In his self-assessment, Phillips O’Brien concludes that he was too optimistic in assuming that the US and its allies would transfer the long-range systems necessary to attack and disrupt the supply lines behind enemy lines. And Ukrainians were putting a priority on liberating territory and that required a land offensive in some shape or form. The Brookings Institution’s Fiona Hill, a senior director for European and Russian affairs on the U.S. National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, also pointed to the Kremlin’s imperial aspirations as a key indicator to watch, but added that these could be thwarted by developments off the battlefield. And even once Russian forces have achieved some presence in Ukraine's cities, perhaps they struggle to maintain control.
- But Ukraine's air defenses were surprisingly effective, shooting down many Russian fighter jets and helicopters in the first couple months of the war.
- Many have continued their careers, working in tech, education or manufacturing here.
- Ukraine’s much-anticipated spring counteroffensive makes incremental or even no progress in the spring and summer, partly because the west has failed to supply it with enough weaponry.
- But it was largely because of the meagre returns from Ukraine’s intensive efforts to liberate more territory.
- The Western countries have gone from training the Ukrainians on specific systems to training larger units on how to carry out coordinated attacks.
But this turns sour and enough members of Russia's military, political and economic elite turn against him. 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. But it may not be implausible if the people who have benefited from Mr Putin no longer believe he can defend their interests. But Ukraine joining NATO could itself be how the war ends, consistent with Biden’s current policy — and at a time and on terms set by Ukraine and its allies, not by Russia. Gaining security within NATO as a strong, pluralistic, democratic state would absolutely count as a victory for Ukraine — arguably as big as quickly regaining Crimea. One is that Russian forces are still strong and will prevail in a grinding war.
Iran denies involvement in drone strike as Biden says US will respond
"I think the danger for Ukrainians is if they really do end up with a stalemate, where they've gained very, very little territory where a lot of the equipment supplied by the West has been written off with Ukrainians having suffered very significant casualties," Shea said. 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. It's become clear that the counteroffensive won't produce quick results and that success — however that might be measured in terms of retaking Russian-occupied territory — is not guaranteed. While the bipartisan majority of lawmakers support arming Kyiv, 57 Republicans voted against a $40 billion emergency aid supplemental in May. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made several concessions to those Ukraine aid skeptics to secure the votes to win his protracted speakership battle. But Smith also said ATACMS producer Lockheed Martin no longer makes the missiles, and the U.S. military still needs them in its stockpiles.
- Three weeks later he seemed to tack to the peace camp, calling for an “immediate ceasefire” following a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.
- There was certainly more optimism surrounding the Ukrainian position at the start of the year than there was at the end.
- National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, also pointed to the Kremlin’s imperial aspirations as a key indicator to watch, but added that these could be thwarted by developments off the battlefield.
- Smith indicated he disagrees with the Biden administration’s decision not to send long-range missiles, noting every Ukrainian official assured him they would not use them to attack Russia.
In Jensen’s view, even the collapse of Russia’s conventional force or a traditional Ukrainian victory may not mean the war is over; either could lead to nuclear escalation by Russia. Either side may act boldly if it winds up on the ropes and needs an exit strategy. 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. It is vital to remember that anything Ukrainians, especially the ones running the country, say about their Russian enemies comes in the heat of a fight that they see, correctly, as a struggle for national survival. It started, they said, with his disastrous decision to mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. The Wagner mutiny, and Mr Prigozhin's denunciation of the Kremlin's justifications for the war have, they said, removed what remained of Mr Putin's chances of hanging on.
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. The fierce determination of the Ukrainian people up to this point suggests that this will not occur any time soon.
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. https://euronewstop.co.uk/where-is-ukraine-air-force.html 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.
- “The Ukrainians are negotiating with their Western partners as much as, and probably more than, they’re negotiating with the Russians,” says Olga Oliker of the International Crisis Group, a think-tank.
- Given what’s at stake — not just the survival of Ukraine but of the whole international order — that would be risky.
- The ISW does note that Russia's advances might be the result of Ukrainian forces withdrawing to "more defensible positions" near Robotyne.
- More than ever, the outcome depends on political decisions made miles away from the centre of the conflict - in Washington and in Brussels.
Their families are often deprived of even elementary information about their location and wellbeing. Artem, 31, was a member of Ukraine’s Azov regiment and was taken prisoner at the end of the siege of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol last May. It was only in March this year that Russia officially confirmed to the Red Cross that Artem was being held prisoner there; Natalia has heard nothing since and had no news from him directly. In a small apartment in a high-rise block on Kyiv’s left bank, 50-year-old Natalia struggled to remain composed as she contemplated spending a second New Year’s Eve without her son Artem.
- Russia, he said, had an important role to play in Europe’s balance of power; it should not be pushed into a “permanent alliance” with China.
- But why would he (and it will certainly be a male) do that if Russia controls large swathes of Ukrainian land?
- It notes the building gives Ukraine a "localised defensive advantage" and says Russian forces will probably suffer significant losses if they attempt to assault the facility.
- Should Ukraine and its allies simply carry on, hoping for a breakthrough in 2025 or beyond?
- For democracies, long-term consensus in support for war has always been more complicated than for autocrats with no accountability.
Putin had already opted to achieve his aims on the battlefield and was confident he could. 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. Still, the botched northern campaign and the serial failures of a military that had been infused with vast sums of money and supposedly subjected to widespread modernization and reform was stunning. In the United States, the intrepid Ukrainian resistance and its battlefield successes soon produced a distinctly upbeat narrative of that country as the righteous David defending the rules and norms of the international order against Putin’s Russian Goliath. Subsequently, however, Russian forces have made significant gains in the south and southeast, occupying part of the Black Sea coast, Kherson province (which lies north of Crimea), most of Donbas in the east, and Zaporozhizhia province in the southeast.
