At the largest scale, a refugee crisis would not be contained to Europe — the U.S. would likely see refugees seeking asylum too. "Assistance with evacuation flow is something they could do, and could do quite well. They are going to be working with Polish authorities on what that looks like and how they would handle that," Defense Department spokesperson John Kirby said last week. The U.S. military says that the thousands of soldiers deployed to Poland this month are prepared to assist with a large-scale evacuation. "It will be a continent-wide humanitarian disaster with millions of refugees seeking protection in neighbouring European countries," Agnès Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said last month in statement.
- The Russian president has even shown his willingness to bring Belarus into the nuclear equation.
- The latest strikes come after a wave of strikes on Monday following a large-scale attack on the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk on Sunday.
- The Head of the Duma Defense Committee Andrei Kartapolov told the RBC news agency that the Ilyushin-76 military transport plane was "shot down by three Patriot or IRIS-T missiles," that had been given to Ukraine's armed forces by its Western allies.
- And if the Ukrainians are prepared to fight the city street by street then the Russians won't be able to have the relatively bloodless takeover they are aiming for.
- "Hotspots are hotter than for a long time, fault-lines increasingly tense and war seems to be proliferating. But the alarm being raised by generals and spooks is a bit of a red herring and, let's face it, they're keen to make the case for bigger budgets and bigger roles.
- A war in Ukraine would revive NATO not as a democracy-building enterprise or as a tool for out-of-area expeditions like the war in Afghanistan but as the unsurpassed defensive military alliance that it was designed to be.
The EU has suspended import duties, quotas and trade defence measures for imports from Ukraine since June 2022 to support its economy after Russia's invasion. However, cheap Ukrainian grain exports have sparked protests by governments, farmers and truckers in neighbouring countries such as Poland and Hungary. Previous smaller-scale operations failed to resolve Russia's dispute with Ukraine or to meet Moscow's political objectives, Kofman said. "If they weren't able to compel Ukraine towards a desirable outcome by taking half of the Donbass, what would another limited incursion achieve exactly?" he said.
Putin's visit to North Korea unlikely to take place soon, Kremlin says
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began on Thursday, is the biggest attack on a European country since the Second World War. Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine and is already home to more than a million Ukrainians, would likely see the most refugees. Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said his country was preparing for an "influx of refugees" from Ukraine. The invasion could send 1 million to 5 million refugees fleeing Ukraine, U.S. officials and humanitarian agencies have warned. Another way Russia could respond to U.S. sanctions is through cyberattacks and influence campaigns.
- A Russian lawmaker suggested that a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war that was shot down over the Belgorod region Wednesday was part of a two-plane convoy en route to a prisoner swap with Ukraine.
- In 2008, Russia launched a major military offensive to prevent the Georgian government from re-establishing control over the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the operation succeeded in imposing a political outcome in line with Moscow's interests.
- Given Putin's track record, there is no reason to rule out another invasion of Ukraine, Kofman said.
- "We are in for a very long fight, this is not going to be short, this is not only going to be about Ukraine. ... This is probably the biggest challenge that we are seeing in Europe since World War II," he said.
- If the Kremlin rapidly moved armored units to the west of the front line, it could cut off and trap much of Ukraine's ground troops without having to occupy major cities, experts said.
If a pro-Russian movement or candidate shows up, that candidate can be encouraged directly or indirectly. If an economic or political sore point diminishes the foreign policy efficacy of the United States and its allies, it will be a weapon for Russian propaganda efforts and for Russian espionage. "What this means, in short, is that the presumption against the use of force - which was the basis for the post-WWII world order, for anything other than defence - has been lost. "China likewise seeks reunification with Taiwan, and Iran, in its region, wants its 'place in the sun'. "However, the last months have seen some loud rumblings, and the sense that the inevitable tensions of a complex world may only be resolvable by war.
What could happen if Russia wins war in Ukraine? Experts consider the scenarios
Ukraine's position is that Russian troops must pull back beyond Ukraine's internationally recognised borders for there to be peace. It is backed by two UN resolutions, passed days after the invasion and hours before the first anniversary of the war. Should he need to, President Putin could extend mobilisation and drag out the war. Russia is a nuclear power and he has indicated he would be prepared, if necessary, to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia and cling on to occupied Ukrainian land. "We will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff," he warned.
The European Union and the United States are each other’s largest trade and investment partners, with trade in goods and services totaling $1.1 trillion in 2019. https://euronewstop.co.uk/where-is-ukraine-air-force.html -functioning, peaceful Europe augments American foreign policy—on climate change, on nonproliferation, on global public health, and on the management of tensions with China or Russia. If Europe is destabilized, then the United States will be much more alone in the world.
How a Russian invasion of Ukraine could spill over into Europe
What are some of the possible scenarios that politicians and military planners are examining? Few can predict the future with confidence, but here are some potential outcomes. 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. "A victorious Ukraine would not be a permanent ward of the West," it says, arguing that restored to its 1991 borders its economy is big enough to support its own military. But if there may be little that the West can do to prevent a Russian military conquest, it will be able to influence what happens afterward.
Very often the seeds of trouble lie beneath the veneer of military victory. But it can do so only by prosecuting a criminal war and by devastating the life of a nation-state that has never invaded Russia. The United States and Europe and their allies and other parts of the world will draw conclusions and be critical of Russian actions. Through their alliances and in their support for the people of Ukraine, the United States and Europe can embody the alternative to wars of aggression and to a might-makes-right ethos.
- In addition to strangling Ukraine's commercial ports, Russia could launch other operations in the south to consolidate its occupation of Crimea, experts say.
- It's all going in through Ukraine's western border - principally Poland.
- Concrete decisions will matter more than any new organisational organigrams, and sophisticated plans or strategies are valuable only as long as they are made real.
- "You know, this practice is quite common, intelligence agencies around the world very often use the media and social networks to recruit new employees. And they do it all the time, the CIA does it every year," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
- Still, even this outcome where Ukraine remains a sovereign democracy and NATO is faced with an improved security situation could be "fraught with danger," the analysts warned.
"The most likely military scenario in my view is going to be a series of rolling operations that they can stop at any point along the way based on how the West reacts," said Ben Hodges, a retired lieutenant general who was commander of U.S. The US had promised the “mother of all sanctions”, probably targeting Russia’s banking and financial sectors, if Russia invaded Ukraine. But that imagined a blitzkrieg-style ground campaign that could take big cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Russia blamed Ukraine for what it called the "barbaric" shooting down of the Russian military transport plane over the border Belgorod region, killing all 65 Ukrainian POWs on board and nine Russians. The head of Ukraine's air force slammed what he described as Russian "propaganda" over the shooting down of a Russian plane transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war on Wednesday, saying Moscow was trying to discredit Ukraine. Question marks and suspicions surround the shooting down Wednesday of a Russian military transport plane that was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war and nine Russians. Even now, Russia's leader describes the biggest European invasion since the end of World War Two as a "special military operation". Not the full-scale war that has bombed civilians across Ukraine and left more than 13 million either as refugees abroad or displaced inside their own country. Biden rejected the US enforcement of a no-fly zone in Ukraine, a military policy that polls surprisingly well among Americans but essentially means attacking any Russian aircraft that enters Ukrainian airspace.
- What was meant to be a quick operation is now a protracted war that Western leaders are determined Ukraine should win.
- Ukraine's position is that Russian troops must pull back beyond Ukraine's internationally recognised borders for there to be peace.
- There’s a lot of sanctions, and the US and its partners have only increased the pressure since.