How will the war in Ukraine end?

Or, Shea added, both sides reach a stalemate “where they dig in behind heavily fortified lines that remain fixed for years with a low-intensity conflict across [a] no man’s land”. One reason why the effects may be contained might be the speed with which the crisis came and went. This was at the dog end of the costly and unimpressive Russian offensives of the first part of the year. Surovikin’s connections to Prigozhin left him banished (though not dead). There were other commanders clearly unhappy with the higher conduct of the war. If Putin now feels more confident it is because he weathered that particular storm.

• It's too early to plan a victory parade in Kyiv but all the momentum is with Ukraine now and there is no doubt in my mind that they will win this war, probably in 2023.
• They change the narrative, and the discussion on the need for a ceasefire and negotiations has started,” he said.
• Expect any negotiated settlement to be fragile and reliant on third-party intervention.
• He noted, however that this would pre-suppose a Russian military collapse and a change in the country’s leadership – something that could take “a long time to achieve and would necessitate considerably greater military capabilities” than Ukraine currently possesses.

He wanted to take (what were claimed to be) the former Russian parts back into Russia and turn the rest into a friendly buffer state. From this perspective Russia remains a long way from a sustainable victory. In https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-does-ukraine-invasion-mean-for-us.html was that the Ukrainians had been encouraged to embrace a western manoeuvre concept but without the capacity to make it work, which left them too dependent on the Russian army being in a weakened and demoralised state.

To show key areas where advances are taking place we are also using updates from the UK Ministry of Defence and BBC research. By October 2022, the picture had changed dramatically and having failed to take Kyiv, Russia withdrew completely from the north. Russian ground troops moved in quickly and within a few weeks were in control of large areas of Ukraine and had advanced to the suburbs of Kyiv. Recent assessments by the ISW show Russian forces have made advances north of Bakhmut. When Ukraine retook Robotyne in August it was hoped that its forces would be able to cut the land corridor to Crimea, making Moscow's supply lines more complicated. Ukraine first announced it had made a breakthrough in mid-November - the river had separated Ukrainian and Russian forces since Moscow's troops withdrew from Kherson a year ago.

Meanwhile, Russian demands for Ukraine’s demilitarisation and neutrality are a “non-starter”, according to Slantchev. Polls in Ukraine show that the public overwhelmingly rejects concessions to Russia. “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.

They believe some of their Western allies, as well as supporters in the media, have become over-excited about Ukraine's army and its Nato equipment. It is clear to the most dispassionate observer of the war that Ukraine is having to fight very hard, and take casualties in troops and equipment, including the armour supplied by Nato. As for Ukraine's offensive, Mr Podolyak said the Wagner mutiny did not last long enough to influence the fighting along a front of 1,800 kilometres, the longest - he said - in any war since 1945. By early summer Ukraine will be able to use US-made F16 fighter jets for the first time, which it hopes will improve its ability to counter Russian aircraft and strengthen its own air defences. The US defence aid package is held hostage by what President Biden rightly labelled "petty politics" in Washington. And the future of the EU's economic aid is seemingly dependent on Hungary's incongruous stance.

The ripple effects of Russia's war in Ukraine continue to change the world

And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents. “Either Ukraine keeps fighting with sustained Western support and eventually forces Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine entirely, with the possible exception of Crimea,” he said, referring to the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. He noted, however that this would pre-suppose a Russian military collapse and a change in the country’s leadership – something that could take “a long time to achieve and would necessitate considerably greater military capabilities” than Ukraine currently possesses.