The first time some Russian officials were told that their country might be seriously intending to act against Ukraine was when they heard it from the director of the CIA, one official says. As the agreement expires in March, he called for its extension. The war has caused a grave global crisis, including among developing countries, cancelling out gains made in the COVID-19 pandemic recovery, said Domingos Estêvão Fernandes of Mozambique, which had cast an abstention on the new General Assembly resolution. Echoing calls for peace, many Council members pointed to such reflections of strong international support as the 141 countries who voted for the General Assembly’s new resolution. Recalling that the conflict had started with a coup in 2014, he said Ukraine is “not a victim” and is “up to its elbows in blood and Nazi tattoos”.
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.
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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.
This is why Ukraine remains wary of proposals for a cessation of hostilities without a proper political settlement. Then, as Russia bombarded residential buildings and acted viciously in occupied areas, and as its forces gave up on their attempts to take Kyiv, the mood in Ukraine became uncompromising. The only acceptable outcome was to get Russian forces completely off their territory. Moscow claimed to be focusing on the Donbas, although in months of fighting it did not make sufficient progress to be able to control all of this territory. It then seemed to be interested in incorporating whatever it had occupied into Russia, but again was thwarted by Ukrainian resistance, and more recently the astonishing offensives in the regions of Kherson and Kharkiv. In private, Western and Ukrainian officials are starting to ponder what a stable outcome might look like.
In Ukraine's river war, drones mean nowhere is safe
If Kyiv did not wage war on the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, there would have been no need for Russia’s special military operation, he added. Might it be possible this war could spill outside Ukraine's borders? President Putin could seek to regain more parts of Russia's former empire by sending troops into ex-Soviet republics like Moldova and Georgia, that are not part of Nato.
Along the road to ending apartheid, the Security Council, in 1963, instituted a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and the General Assembly refused to accept the country’s credentials from 1970 to 1974. Following this ban, South Africa did not participate in further proceedings of the Assembly until the end of apartheid in 1994. Acting under Chapter VI of the Charter, the Council can call upon parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommend methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. It can also recommend the referral of disputes to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is widely known as the ‘World Court’ and is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, seated at The Hague in the Netherlands. Although there are still some 60 UN Member States that have never sat on the Security Council, all members of the UN, however, agree under Article 25 of the Charter, to accept and carry out decisions adopted by the Council. In other words, actions taken by the Council are binding on all UN member countries.
Why is the Russian air force not more involved in the war? I rarely see any news regarding Russian strikes from the air. — Matt
The head of NATO recently warned that the war could go on for years. That is indeed what NATO is working towards – an open-ended conflict draining Russia and enfeebling a rival in what has evidently become a proxy war, with Ukraine as the battlefield. We have managed this despite an unprecedented onslaught against us, headed by Labour leader Keir Starmer. He has sought to insulate Labour from anti-war opinion, with it must be conceded a degree of success at the parliamentary level, if much less success amongst ordinary Labour members and less still in the trade union movement.
- In London, the intelligence - coming in from GCHQ and MI6 - was met with near-disbelief in some quarters.
- But they are a reminder that, eight months after his unprovoked invasion, Mr Putin keeps looking for ways to raise the stakes.
- Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said this is a “war of choice”, by President Putin.
- 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.