But, by agreeing to the talks, Putin seems to at least have accepted the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire. 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. Mr Putin could declare Western arms supplies to Ukrainian forces are an act of aggression that warrant retaliation. He could threaten to send troops into the Baltic states - which are members of Nato - such as Lithuania, to establish a land corridor with the Russian coastal exclave of Kaliningrad.
- Still, she said, whatever border is drawn between Russia and Ukraine is likely to be far longer and harder to secure than the one dividing the Korean peninsula.
- Expect any negotiated settlement to be fragile and reliant on third-party intervention.
- It's possible today's situation with Russia might make such a policy more politically palatable if the U.S. attempted it again, though I can't find any serious proposal in the government to do just that.
- However, where this line is and if there are any viable alternatives that would better serve the interests of this coalition is questionable.
- There was certainly more optimism surrounding the Ukrainian position at the start of the year than there was at the end.
Meanwhile, Indian thinktank Observer Research Foundation's Russia expert, Nandan Unnikrishnan, said India was unlikely to sign "any major military deal" with Russia because it would cross a red line with the US. "A frank and constructive dialogue is expected to improve relations between states," the Ukrainian president's office said on its official channel on the Telegram messaging app alongside a photo of Mr Szijjarto, Mr Kuleba and Mr Yermak. "The United States maintains by far the world's most powerful nuclear stockpile, but with the US out of the mix, the French and British, with their much smaller arsenals, would be Europe’s only nuclear deterrent," Mr OBrien says. He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources". A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe.
Ukraine breaks through
Some Ukrainian experts fear a pincer movement to encircle Donbas and the east from Sumy in the north and Velyka Novosilka in the south, allowing Russia to occupy most of the four Ukrainian provinces it has unilaterally claimed to have annexed. At this point, Russia could call for a ceasefire to retain what it has, and run a defensive campaign to consolidate its battered military. Mr Putin, on the other hand, is banking on support weakening over time, giving him an opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
- From the very beginning of the war, President Putin has drawn parallels between the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II and the current military campaign against supposed "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine.
- "The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open," said UN Secretary General António Guterres.
- “Ukraine cannot afford to stop now because it would lose one-fifth of its territory to Russia, including vital Black Sea trading ports, the industrial and mining area of the Donbas, and important tracts of agricultural land.
- A senior European Union official has denied member states are discussing financial coercion to force Hungary to agree on financing for Ukraine.
- Mr Putin has already annexed the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia through so-called referendums after pulling back troops to regroup in eastern Ukraine.
For example, the tactic of repurposing dishwasher electronics for weapons, mocked in the West as a sign of desperation, probably means “somebody thought about that from the beginning,” he said. Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didn’t yield the immediate results for which experts hoped. Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all. “This war will last indefinitely, with long pauses for cease-fires,” he said. At the same time, election season in the United States — Ukraine’s most important backer — stands to spur arguments that a war in Europe of unknown duration is a costly nuisance for America. Meanwhile, any prospect of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine look slim despite efforts to bring both sides to the negotiating table.
UK army chief warns citizens to prepare for massive war with Russia
Chancellor Olaf Scholz also recently authorized supplying infantry fighting vehicles to help push Russian forces out of occupied Ukraine. The news from the battlefield, the diplomatic noises off, the emotion of the grieving and displaced; all of this can be overwhelming. So let us step back for a moment and consider how the conflict in Ukraine might play out. What are some of the possible scenarios that politicians and military planners are examining?
But this winter, they’re expected to launch attacks across open plains, which would be harder to defeat, said Daniel Rice, a former U.S. Army captain who last year became a special adviser to Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander of the Ukrainian military. “I would love to think the kinetic phase could end in 2023, but I suspect we could be looking at another three years with this scale of fighting,” Roberts said.
BBC News Services
It would be wrong to say that the front lines in Ukraine are stalemated, but both sides are capable of fighting each other to a standstill as they each try to take strategic initiatives. https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-is-europe-not-helping-ukraine.html to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova is more than just symbolic. It implicitly means continued backing for Kyiv, as a future in the EU for Ukraine would be impossible with a full-blown victory for Russia.