Russians, it seems, would like the war to end but, starved of impartial news, do not blame Mr Putin for it. Still, the more he tries to dragoon them into fighting, the more he risks losing popular support. "The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open," said UN Secretary General António Guterres. 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.
- He judges that continuing the war may be a greater threat to his leadership than the humiliation of ending it.
- As the agreement expires in March, he called for its extension.
- Russia's relationship with the outside world will be different.
- They had seen the intelligence predicting a war and knew that if Russia was really going to invade Ukraine, it would begin in the early hours of the morning.
- Many would support efforts to reclaim the parts of Donbas seized in 2014.
At the same time, if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that Ukraine may not achieve total military success in the next year or two. Its counteroffensive is making progress, but slowly and painfully. https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-doesnt-russia-want-ukraine-in-nato.html , 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.
UN General Assembly calls for immediate end to war in Ukraine
Regardless of which party controls the House and Senate, one thing is certain. The war in Ukraine and the US intervention will continue in the short-term, as a lame-duck Congress considers another $50 billion for Ukraine, with much of the money earmarked for weapons, military training, and intelligence to escalate a war with no military solution. Mr Danilov said they included security forces, officials and representatives of Russia's oligarchs, who believe that Mr Putin's decision to launch a full invasion of Ukraine in February last year has been a personal disaster for them as well as a threat to Russia.
Unlike with Russia’s actions, it would have every right under international law to do so. When Putin intervened in Syria, he very carefully framed this as a response to a request from Syria’s legitimate and internationally recognised government. The longer this war rages on, the more Ukrainians will flee their homeland, and the more devastation will be wrought upon their homes, cities, industry and economy. Yet the west’s current approach of supporting Ukraine’s war aim of defeating the aggressor, and providing arms for that purpose while pointedly avoiding direct military intervention, is guaranteed to prolong the war.
In Ukraine's river war, drones mean nowhere is safe
Ask students to sign a letter calling on their congressperson to vote against future weapons for Ukraine. Collect names and contact information and organize a delegation to deliver the letter to your House and Senate reps. 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. In the best-case scenario Ukraine wins a better deal than before the war. For me that means more defensible borders, which would mean some form of continued Western presence and the arming of Ukraine by the West, along with training and funding.
- The Biden administration has said the war must end before Ukraine can join NATO, because it does not want to risk direct U.S. involvement.
- Whatever the diplomatic template, Russia’s blitz has proved that the West will need to help Ukraine create a properly integrated and layered air-defence system, mixing fighter aircraft, surface-to-air batteries and shoulder-launched weapons.
- One further factor is the deep reluctance of senior military figures to see the war end, fearing their own positions if a faction even worse than Putin were to come to power, then decide to assign blame and clear out the old guard.
- The same considerations apply to international interventions to support a friendly government facing an insurgency.
"Prigozhin will get what he wanted," the official predicted. "His political life is not finished. He won't stay in exile in Belarus." Other senior officials in Kyiv say they are convinced that Mr Putin is opposed by informal but organised networks of disenchanted insiders. But it is still worth spending time getting their views of the crisis that has engulfed the presidency of their mortal enemy Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine will do all it can to keep pressure on the Russians there to make it untenable for the Russian navy in Sevastopol, the handful of air force bases there and their logistics base at Dzankoy. It is in a fight for its survival and understands what Russia will do if it stops. More European nations are now talking about the need to step up aid in light of concerns that the US is weakening in its resolve. Industrial-age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority.
