Ukraine war: Countdown has begun to end of Putin, say Kyiv officials

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. Depending on how long the war lasts, it remains far from certain whether lawmakers will keep funding Ukraine aid packages. Congress provided more than $100 billion in aid to Kyiv since Russia invaded last year, including $61.4 billion in military aid. “The ultimate end to this is the Ukrainians take back as much pre-Feb.

• A Christmas Eve story in the New York Times claimed that Putin might be trying to find a way out.
• Third, since there are not free and fair elections, there is no way other than mass mobilisation and revolution for the Russian people to overthrow Putin.
• The debates still rages about whether an earlier tactical withdrawal from Bakhmut would have made sense.
• 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.
• That could end up looking something like the Korean peninsula, with a demilitarised zone between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled territory, or a grinding perpetual conflict that flares up and down, eventually resulting in an uneasy truce.

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. The money is coming through and Kyiv is still holding steady, battered and bruised but determined to resist Russian aggression.

Ukraine is more than holding its own, but it wanted to have liberated another chunk of its territory during 2023 and that has not happened. In addition to being willing to accept huge losses, the Russians have shown themselves to be adept at defensive operations and have improved their use of drones and electronic warfare capabilities. There is also the extremely tricky issue of mobilisation which is now being addressed but requires up to 500,000 recruits. So while in principle looking at a map creates new options for the next stage of the Russian offensive in practice losses of this sort reduces the ability of Russian forces to build on any gains. https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-the-conflict-in-ukraine-will-affect-the-uk.html in Chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi has stressed the importance of inflicting heavy casualties on Russia, “until the enemy gives up fighting against our country,” while acknowledging that its hard to know in the Russian case when this point would be reached.

• The undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, told the Senate in January the Biden administration still expects the $45 billion Ukraine aid package Congress passed in December to last through the end of this fiscal year.
• Defense experts say it's unlikely the counteroffensive will see any breakthroughs this year.
• It started, they said, with his disastrous decision to mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
• Some of the superforecasters, however, point to key differences between this war and past conflicts that they believe could produce a faster resolution—including the degree to which the West is arming Ukraine and punishing Russia economically.

“Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia — never,” President Joe Biden said in a speech in Poland this year, and rightly so. The worst outcome would be, “at the cost of enormous losses”, the liberation of all of Ukraine, which will “remain in ruins with a population that mostly hates us” and a “redemption” that would take more than a decade. 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. A lot was riding on Ukraine’s offensive, including the added value that might result from western equipment transfers and training programmes.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 704

Yet six months on Putin does not give the appearance of having suffered long-term harm. Perhaps this remains a situation in which absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. The lack of political noise in Moscow does not mean that there is no unease or dissent among the elite.

• The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw the return of major war to the European continent.
• "They understand the wider strategic point, which is that this is a confrontation between the West and Russia and at stake is not just the future territorial integrity of Ukraine but the security construct for Europe and the West with Russia," he noted.
• 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.

President Macron of France has spoken to President Putin on the phone. And, surprisingly, Russian and Ukrainian officials have met for talks on the border with Belarus. But, by agreeing to the talks, Putin seems to at least have accepted the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire. Maybe Russian forces get bogged down, hampered by low morale, poor logistics and inept leadership.

“If Russia were to use nuclear weapons, the West might then become directly involved in the war in Ukraine in terms of putting forces in [the country]. In this scenario, the United States would give the Ukrainian military whatever it needs to advance as far as possible in its counteroffensive. At an appropriate point next year, Ukraine would declare a pause in offensive military operations and shift its primary focus to defending and rebuilding liberated areas while integrating with Western institutions. Then, at its July, 2024 summit in Washington, NATO would invite Ukraine to join the Western alliance, guaranteeing the security of all territory controlled by the Ukrainian government at that point under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. A second way for Ukraine to win — at least theoretically — would be through a diplomatic agreement.

U.S. trainers continued working in Ukraine right up until the full-scale Russian invasion a year ago. Many Russian nationalists, though, perceive Ukraine as a breakaway region of greater Russia. During President Putin's marathon state address on Feb. 21, he accused Western countries of attempting "to deprive Russia of these historical territories that are now called Ukraine," making war the only way to "protect the people in our historical lands."

To a lesser extent, Putin is dependent on the support of the general population. The public is bearing the costs of war in the form of inflation, economic decline and battlefield deaths. This suggests that the two sides will have difficulty ever resolving the information problem. When this happens, countries often end up fighting wars of attrition that last until one side gives up. It was largely apparent that Russia’s army was and is far superior to Ukraine’s in terms of stockpiles of weapons and number of personnel.