When will the war in Ukraine end? One year on, we answer your questions about the conflict

Ukraine shoots most of these down with its air defense missiles. For Ukraine, the problem is it's running low on these missiles. Senior officials from around 40 countries, including China, and India, held talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the weekend with the aim of agreeing on key principles that could underline a future settlement of the war.

Little progress was made, and then at high cost, with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group to the fore in Soledar and Bakhmut. Commenting on an ongoing war is difficult, especially for someone not close to the front lines. This is why, as I noted in last year’s assessment, my preference is “to talk about trends, possibilities, and developments coming into view.” Wars pass through stages, as fortunes shift, and the challenges of supply and reinforcement change. Over time some possibilities become impossible, some quite likely, and new ones emerge.

"My aim is to change Russia. I may not be president on 17 March but I should have the best result." "He practically destroyed the key institutions of the modern state of Russia. My job will be to restore these institutions," said Mr Nadezhdin. He has won several presidential elections comfortably, but in recent years no serious opposition has been allowed. The Kremlin maintains that elections are fair and he is genuinely popular. Boris Nadezhdin told the BBC he was unlikely to win 17 March elections but Mr Putin would not last six more years.

• Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, retorts, “It is much more dangerous giving in to Putin than provoking him.” American and European officials have quietly been helping Ukraine develop negotiating positions.
• Yet I recently posed them to several top historians, political scientists, geopolitical forecasters, and former officials—because only in imagining potential futures can we understand the rough bounds of the possible, and our own agency in influencing the outcome we want.
• One is the “peace party”, which wants a halt to the fighting and the start of negotiations as soon as possible.
• "My aim is to change Russia. I may not be president on 17 March but I should have the best result."

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. Russian forces may try to push again along the entire front, at least to secure all of the Donbas region. https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-big-is-ukraine-compared-to-uk.html will probably try to exploit the success it has had in re-establishing its control over the western Black Sea and its vital trade corridor to the Bosphorus. 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. Recently, Ukraine's winter offensive seems to have come to a halt.

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

Ukraine, meanwhile, would need years of western support to ensure its eastern border remains stable. Research suggests that the path to war resembles a bargaining game, where countries compete over issues like territory and resources to patriotism or the style of governance. Rather than going to war, which is very costly, competing states prefer to settle these disagreements peacefully.

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. 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.

However, where this line is and if there are any viable alternatives that would better serve the interests of this coalition is questionable. As of this writing, the superforecasters had assigned a roughly 70 percent probability to the scenario of Russia and Ukraine not agreeing to end the conflict before October 1, 2024, the furthest-out date among the multiple-choice options presented. When the superforecasters were asked to name the year in which they expected Russia’s war against Ukraine to end, the median answer was 2025, with a minimum of 2024 and a maximum of 2037. Many experts I consulted, however, advised girding for a struggle that could last a lot longer, even if the war in its more acute form resolves sooner. There are no certain answers to my questions, just ones contingent on unknowable future circumstances.

While those sanctions have indeed hurt Russia, they’ve also contributed to skyrocketing energy and food prices in the West (even as Putin profits by selling his oil, gas, and coal at higher prices). The US inflation rate, at 8.6 percent last month, is the highest in 40 years, while the Congressional Budget Office has revised estimates of economic growth—3.1 percent this year— down to 2.2 percent for 2023 and 1.5 percent for 2024. All this as mid-term elections loom and President Biden’s approval ratings, now at 39.7 percent, continue to sink. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, I was easing my way into a new job and in the throes of the teaching year.

• Ukraine’s Commander 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.
• According to Politico , encouraged by the Biden administration, this is the shift in posture currently underway, bolstering air defences, strengthening positions in eastern Ukraine, and making it harder for Russian forces to attack from Belarus.
• "We want peace around the world," 70-year-old Kyiv resident Nina Albul recently told my colleague Hanna Palamarenko, "but we also want the world to know that it's okay for enslaved people to fight back."
• When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, I was easing my way into a new job and in the throes of the teaching year.

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. The plant, on the north-western outskirts of the town, dominates the main road into Avdiivka and, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) believes if Russian forces were to secure it, resupplying the town would "become increasingly difficult for Ukraine". The Ukrainian General Staff says its forces have repelled Russian attacks near Avdiivka itself, as well as from settlements to the north west, south west, and directly west of the town. The ISW does note that Russia's advances might be the result of Ukrainian forces withdrawing to "more defensible positions" near Robotyne. 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. Later, in November 2022, Zelenskyy unveiled his "peace formula." Zelenskyy's 10-point peace plan called for the withdrawal of Russian forces and the restoration of Ukraine's state borders with Russia.