The devastation was felt most acutely in Kharkiv, where an apartment block was hit, killing two people, and injuring 35 residents. Blaming Nato's expansion eastwards is a Russian narrative that has gained some ground in Europe. Before the war, President Putin demanded Nato turn the clock back to 1997 and remove its forces and military infrastructure from Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Baltics. Nato member states have increasingly sent Ukraine air defence systems to protect its cities, as well as missile systems, artillery and drones that helped turn the tide against Russia's invasion. Ukraine's position is that Russian troops must pull back beyond Ukraine's internationally recognised borders for there to be peace.
- Under Nato's Article 5 the entire western military alliance is obliged to come to the defence of any member state that comes under attack.
- President Putin, 70, has sought to distance himself from military failures, but his authority, at least outside Russia, has been shredded and he makes few trips beyond its borders.
- The Sea of Azov, inside the Kerch Strait, "has become Russia's internal sea", he declared, pointing out that even Russian Tsar Peter the Great did not manage that.
It is regrettable - and sadly predictable - that we must gather today to condemn Russia’s latest wave of aerial attacks against the Ukrainian people. Ambassador Neil Holland condemns Russia's air attacks this week on Kyiv and Kharkiv, as well as the spate of attacks on Ukraine over the past month. In 1968 the Government developed an operation, codenamed Python, to disperse the key figures in groups to different parts of the country, including on yachts at sea.
What happens if Russia invades Ukraine? How the UK and Nato would respond if Putin launches an invasion
But there is still a chance Moscow could find itself in a costly and prolonged guerrilla war that, in the long run, may turn victory into defeat. Calling Nato "evil", he effectively told Ukraine it had no right to exist as a sovereign nation independent from Russia. But be https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-does-slava-ukraine-mean.html or wimps, now is the time to start facing up to the prospect, says Ed Arnold, a European Security Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.
The logistics of training a “Citizen Army” are also formidable, according to one former Territorial Army (TA) soldier. “If you are talking about mass mobilisation to defend the homeland, that is hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. Britain has also allowed ammunition supplies to dwindle to “dangerously low levels,” according to a Parliamentary Defence Committee report.
What would happen if Russia targeted the UK with nuclear weapons?
The war that erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014 has already left 14,000 dead and an estimated 1.4 million displaced. As the war approaches its second anniversary, severe weapons shortages and worrying signs of waning Western support are undermining Ukraine’s war effort. This may lead Putin to conclude that he can still emerge victorious in his confrontation with the West, which is bound to encourage further provocations in future. Any full-scale invasion of Ukraine could be over in a matter of a few days.
The prospect of formidable Ukrainian resistance could affect the Kremlin's risk-benefit calculus. If ground forces faltered, Russia could up the ante, such as by carpet bombing, a tactic it used in Chechnya and Aleppo. Warnings of an expanded Russian invasion of Ukraine have a “High Noon” feel. A renewed crisis could spur the United States and its NATO allies to go beyond, perhaps well beyond, their responses to Russia's 2014 assault. This militarization could cause a dramatic increase in defense spending by both the United States and NATO over the next decade.
Hospitals, infrastructure, cultural treasures, private homes and industrial centres are either destroyed or pillaged, with stolen goods being sent to Russia in an organised manner. Nato is also working with Ukraine to modernise its armed forces and said it will help Ukraine defend against cyber attacks as well as supply it with secure communications equipment for the military. US forces will not get directly involved now, but military assistance will be swiftly provided by some Nato states, including lethal aid, intelligence-sharing and weapons such as man-portable missiles (as in Afghanistan). If fighting is prolonged and civilian casualties mount, pressure on the west to intervene will grow rapidly.
- The Ukrainian armed forces said they had shot down five Russian planes and a helicopter - which Russia denies - and inflicted casualties on invading troops.
- Russia has assembled up to 190,000 forces personnel, including ground, sea and air, around Ukraine, armed with fast jets, artillery, warships and tanks.
- After more than four months of fighting, it is Russia that is experiencing manpower shortages.
- Ukraine's position is that Russian troops must pull back beyond Ukraine's internationally recognised borders for there to be peace.
- Russian troops are trying to take Ukraine's two biggest cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv, but are meeting stiff resistance.
- He also confirmed that 8 trillion roubles (USD $120b) were required for the stimulus budget.
With every day, more of the combat troops and heavy weaponry marshalled along Ukraine's borders move forward in all directions, but not as fast or as far as many expected. William Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, was U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and U.S.-USSR negotiations to implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. While Ukrainians may be unable to defeat a large-scale invasion, they could inflict high casualties, a sensitive issue in Russia.
The course of the conflict in 2023 marked the fact that industrial-age warfare had returned too. More than ever, the outcome depends on political decisions made miles away from the centre of the conflict - in Washington and in Brussels. "Russia can pose a major conventional military threat to NATO for the first time since the 1990s in a timeframe set to a considerable extent by how much the Kremlin invests in its military." Republicans in Washington have been holding up new funds for Kyiv over demands for border control, leading to concerns over the reliability of American support. That's what could happen if the United States cut off military aid to Ukraine and Europe followed suit, according to a prominent thinktank. But the alliance has also made clear that it believes that Ukraine has a right to make its own decisions as a sovereign nation, and it is not willing to give Russia a veto on Ukraine's future.
Almost four million Russians have travelled away from Russia so far in 2022, many choosing not to return for the time being. It is the largest such exodus since the Bolshevik revolution and could result in an enormous country-wide brain drain; something that is already being experienced in the IT sector. The myth of the invincible Russian military machine has evaporated in the space of a few weeks. Russian forces had to withdraw from the vicinity of Kyiv and were beaten off in many other locations. Corruption, a disease at the heart of the Russian state, displayed itself on a grand scale in the conduct of the military operation. Russia’s human losses are enormous and, in spite of censorship, becoming known to the Russian public.
- The UN human rights commissioner says at least 8,006 civilians have died and 13,287 have been wounded in 12 months of war, but the true number is likely to be substantially higher.
- In extremis, a wartime government could inter anyone deemed a threat to public order or the war effort.
- A full-on assault of Ukraine, with Russian forces attacking from the north, east and south, would aim to encircle the most potent arm of the Ukrainian military in the east, as well as make a move on the capital.
- By avoiding Russian efforts at rapid encirclement, Ukraine could trade space for time.