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. They have also created a patchy land corridor connecting Crimea to Russia for the first time since that area was taken in 2014. Yet the campaign to conquer key cities—Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv—failed disastrously. The morale of the Ukrainians remained high and their military tactics adept.
- The lack of political noise in Moscow does not mean that there is no unease or dissent among the elite.
- And long, exhaustive fighting carries its own risks, according to Benjamin Jensen, a war gaming expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
- 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.
- Putin knows that the leading Republican candidate for president next year, former President Donald Trump, would end U.S. support for Ukraine, and that there are others like him in Europe.
- There are no certain answers to my questions, just ones contingent on unknowable future circumstances.
Previous wars, like the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, too have hinged on such external assistance. At different times in this conflict Russia has resembled Iran’s position, and Ukraine has mirrored Iraq’s in that war — if only incompletely — said Jeremy Morris, professor of global studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. Both sides are now digging in as Moscow’s “special military operation”, which was intended to last a matter of days, grinds into another year of attritional warfare. Russia is throwing waves of recruits and mercenaries into close-quarters battles around towns like Bakhmut and Vuhledar. https://euronewstop.co.uk/when-did-ukraine-become-independent.html is coming through and Kyiv is still holding steady, battered and bruised but determined to resist Russian aggression. Putin can’t keep his forces on the offensive all year long and now has to keep an eye out for new Ukrainian strikes on assets not only in Crimea (such as the recent hit on a large landing ship in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in occupied Crimea) but also in Russia proper.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 703
It would not be the first time Russia has employed such a strategy of attrition, turning an active conflict into a frozen one for lack of a better solution. 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. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned it could last for years, while Western intelligence agencies have reportedly said Russia’s combat capabilities could be depleted in the coming months. Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular the war started by Moscow. Despite Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin's closest EU ally, vetoing a $55 billion support package from Brussels for Kyiv in mid-December, backing from other European allies has been strong.
There seems to be some degree of sensitivity in Ukraine to Russia's claims it's waging a proxy war with the West over Ukraine. A lot of the Ukrainians I've talked to, while they appreciate the Western weapons supplies, say this is their war to fight. Apart from a few exceptions, almost all of the tens of thousands of people who have died in this war have been on Ukrainian territory. Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry.
When will the war in Ukraine end? Experts offer their predictions.
The main reason for the assessment that it suits Putin to hang in there is that over time western support for Ukraine will drift away. Indeed, Putin was quite explicit about this in his press conference of 14 December. Ukraine has been unable to put itself in a position to force a decision on Russia. But even if the offensive had made more progress it would have been a tall order to put the Russians sufficiently in a corner that their choice was only between battlefield humiliation and a negotiated withdrawal.
- 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.
- “You end up with something between a frozen conflict and an everlasting war, in which neither side has the energy or economy to win,” Nixey said.
- 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.
- There were in fact already obvious tensions in the Russian high command.
China intervenes, putting pressure on Moscow to compromise, warning that it will not buy Russian oil and gas unless it de-escalates. 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.
The negotiations, facilitated by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, saw Ukraine request an immediate ceasefire and the removal of all Russian forces from the country, the talks ended without resolution. The report, cites two people with close links to the Kremlin and says that senior US officials were made aware of the signals in December via an unnamed intermediary. At the same time, if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that Ukraine may not achieve total military success in the next year or two. Its counteroffensive is making progress, but slowly and painfully. The Russian military, though battered and demoralized, has remained resilient, even against advanced Western weapons and tactics. And Russia has a seemingly endless supply of young men whose lives it is willing to waste in this war.
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. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw the return of major war to the European continent.