For democracies, long-term consensus in support for war has always been more complicated than for autocrats with no accountability. We asked three military analysts how they think events may unfold in the coming 12 months.
- It exploited some of its many flaws to degrade its apparently unenforceable norms and values,” Tsahkna wrote.
- A conflict where a major nuclear power and energy exporter violated the sovereignty of a country that is a keystone of global food security was never going to be contained to just two countries.
- They have also created a patchy land corridor connecting Crimea to Russia for the first time since that area was taken in 2014.
- Russia is keeping those fighter jets grounded for now and is attacking with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones.
Russia lacks the equipment and trained manpower to launch a strategic offensive until spring 2025, at the earliest. It would be wrong to say that the front lines in Ukraine are stalemated, but both sides are capable of fighting each other to a standstill as they each try to take strategic initiatives. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-will-china-do-if-russia-invades-ukraine.html -age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority. Russia's defence budget has tripled since 2021 and will consume 30% of government spending next year. 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.
Ukraine says corrupt officials stole $40 million of weapons money
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. 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.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities see the continuing destruction of their country and conclude that political compromise might be better than such devastating loss of life. Ukraine, say, accepts Russian sovereignty over Crimea and parts of the Donbas. In turn, Putin accepts Ukrainian independence and its right to deepen ties with Europe. But it is not beyond the realms of plausibility that such a scenario could emerge from the wreckage of a bloody conflict.
How will the war in Ukraine end?
“We are drawn to this scenario, in part, because we seem to lack other variants, and it feels like an ending,” he wrote at the time. More likely, Snyder argues, Putin is trying to instill fear in order to buy his military time and undermine international support for Ukraine. He uses Russia's internal security forces to suppress that opposition.
- However, that still falls short of the ATACMS, which would allow Ukraine to strike Russian targets about 190 miles away.
- The lack of political noise in Moscow does not mean that there is no unease or dissent among the elite.
- Wars require the tacit approval and support of those on the home front.
Wars require the tacit approval and support of those on the home front. Regardless of a country’s government style, a leader is still dependent upon the support of a group of people, or coalition, to stay in power. Vladimir Putin depends on oligarchs, the Russian mafia and the military for his survival. Although Putin attempted to build up a financial bulwark that would allow him to protect the interests of the oligarchs, the sanctions imposed by the west have undercut most of his efforts. 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.
“There isn’t really any source of alternative power to coalesce around while Putin is healthy and alive,” said Morris. Putin’s presidency began with the second Chechen war in 1999, when separatist rebels sought independence from Russia. The war, which ended with the Chechen capital razed to the ground and Chechen resistance largely stamped out, left a lasting imprint on Putin’s approach to regions seeking to break away from Russian influence, according to analysts. “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. The US and its allies were quick to provide aid that has been vital to Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.