Analysis: what happens if Russia invades? Russia

What we might want to worry about more is the impact on energy prices. Your parents are likely to pay even more for gas and electricity because of this crisis. Labour's Keir Starmer and many Conservative backbenchers have called for further military options to be explored. So far the UK government has sent troops (now withdrawn) to train the Ukrainian army, and supplied them with defensive weapons. The defence expert, who held meetings in Moscow with Russian officials last week, said one of the extra options the UK could provide are intelligence surveillance reports.

On Monday, he fired a shot across the bows, telling an event in London that Britain would “stand up to bullies”, no matter how far away the conflict. An incursion by Russia into Ukraine would violate the “most basic freedoms and sovereignty”, the defence secretary has said following a visit to Scandinavia. 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. 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. He said these would more likely be smaller nuclear weapons known as tactical nuclear weapons, used within Ukraine. These are different from strategic nuclear weapons, like the ones used by the US in Japan during the Second World War, but would still represent a significant escalation.

While Covid was a useful exercise in Armageddon planning, 21st-century Britain is arguably less ready for actual warfare than it was even 30 years ago. At the end of the Cold War, most of the 100-strong network of nuclear bunkers were closed, along with around 1,500 underground posts for the Royal Observer Corps, a 10,000-strong volunteer force. Right now, such scenarios tend to exercise only the minds of Ministry of Defence war-gamers and military thriller writers. But far-fetched as they might sound, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the head of Britain’s army, believes it is time we dwelt on them more. Nato uses a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.

• But be we warriors 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.
• To train and equip that larger army would inevitably require more money.
• One ex senior minister suggested to me that there was a generational divide between those who had lived with the threat of the Cold War era, and those who had not.
• The UK’s nuclear advice for citizens is called the Protect and Survive booklet.
• Belarus's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said his country's military were not involved but could be if needed.

There are reports of attacks on Ukrainian military infrastructure across the country, and Russian convoys entering from all directions. With Russian forces amassing at the border over recent weeks, the UK responded by sending Ukraine "self-defence" weapons. Last week, another senior Nato military chief said countries needed to be on alert "and expect the unexpected". Adm Rob Bauer, who heads the alliance's military committee, said the public needed to change their mindset for an era "when anything can happen at any time".

What war could mean for life in modern Britain

"A frank and constructive dialogue is expected to improve relations between states," the Ukrainian president's office said on its official channel on the Telegram messaging app alongside a photo of Mr Szijjarto, Mr Kuleba and Mr Yermak. However, he warned of "chaos" if European states do not show enough unity and determination. A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe. Madame Chair, last but not least I also wanted to highlight today the UK’s continued concern for our three OSCE colleagues of the Special Monitoring Mission detained by Russia. It is a similar picture in Gaza where, despite the ferocity of Israel’s military assault, the Israel Defence Forces are still encountering stiff resistance from Hamas. Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch his “special military operation” against Ukraine was motivated by a belief that the West would not mount any meaningful opposition.

The war that erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014 has already left 14,000 dead and an estimated 1.4 million displaced. It is called self-determination, and perhaps the most important aspect of this principle is that borders cannot be changed by invading armies. Russian forces targeted parts of the Kharkiv oblast throughout yesterday and this morning, injuring several and damaging buildings, said Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional state administration.

But it is a formal, public and written commitment by the UK to support Ukraine. This was in return for Ukraine giving up its massive arsenal of nuclear weapons, a legacy of its membership of the Soviet Union. In 1994, the UK - along with the US - signed a memorandum at an international conference in Budapest promising "to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine".

• A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe.
• US President Joe Biden has ruled out sending troops even to shepherd American citizens out of Ukraine because he said if Russians and Americans end up fighting that would be World War III.
• That, though, is partly because Ukraine had already learnt from previous Russian cyberattacks over the past decade.
• Mr Putin has repeatedly accused the US and its allies of ignoring Russia's demands to prevent Ukraine from joining the Nato military alliance and offer Moscow security guarantees.

"We're now going to a place where we can be safe and we hope we can leave safely." The US and UK have not ruled out arming resistance fighters, as during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. British ministers predict a long-running “quagmire”, with Russia suffering significant casualties. The US estimates artillery, missile and bomb strikes and ground clashes could kill 50,000 civilians, a figure that may prove conservative if fighting is prolonged.

Russian forces also reportedly landed by sea at Ukraine's major port cities of Odesa on the Black Sea and Mariupol on the internal Sea of Azov. In the capital Kyiv, home to almost three million people, warning sirens blared out as traffic queued to leave the city and crowds sought shelter in metro stations. " https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-is-russia-invading-ukraine-newsround.html don't understand what we should do now," one woman called Svetlana told the BBC.

• Anyone exposed within a 6.8-mile radius of the impact would almost certainly suffer third-degree burns, while hundreds of thousands would be likely to die due to radiation fallout.
• These are different from strategic nuclear weapons, like the ones used by the US in Japan during the Second World War, but would still represent a significant escalation.
• As in Ukraine, office techies could be in demand to operate drones on the front lines and to fend off cyberattacks.