Superior US Himars missiles helped turn the course of the war and German Leopard 2 tanks are promised, even if Western fighter jets are not. A succession of Western leaders, including President Joe Biden, have made the complex journey to Kyiv. President Putin warned in December that the war "could be a lengthy process", but then added later that Russia's goal was "not to spin the flywheel of military conflict", but to end it. Ambassador Neil Holland condemns Russia's air attacks this week on Kyiv and Kharkiv, as well as the spate of attacks on Ukraine over the past month. Russian forces targeted parts of the Kharkiv oblast throughout yesterday and this morning, injuring several and damaging buildings, said Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional state administration.
- He called Russia's assault a "naked, aggressive, military invasion" and said he believed diplomacy was currently "absolutely off the table".
- The UK will ban hi-tech exports to Russia and sanction people and companies in the defence and energy sectors.
- "We don't understand what we should do now," one woman called Svetlana told the BBC.
- HMS Diamond has also left Portsmouth Naval Base as part of the UK's response to support Nato countries in eastern Europe.
This culminated on 29 December, when Russian unleashed its largest aerial assault against Ukraine since the war began. It killed at least 41 civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, wounded hundreds, and caused significant damage to civilian infrastructure, including a maternity hospital. According to reports, Russian missiles on Kyiv and Kharkiv killed at least 18 people and injured over one hundred.
Why Russia invaded
The former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has long been criticised for describing Germany's attempted annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 as "a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing".
Labour's Keir Starmer and many Conservative backbenchers have called for further military options to be explored. So far the UK government has sent troops (now withdrawn) to train the Ukrainian army, and supplied them with defensive weapons. Nato is also working with Ukraine to modernise its armed forces and said it will help Ukraine defend against cyber attacks as well as supply it with secure communications equipment for the military. President Biden's virtual meeting with President Putin earlier this week was a start and will be followed up by more talks with other Nato members.
Putin's intent
Russia did not want to occupy Ukraine, he said, but would demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the country. Russia has begun a large-scale military attack on Ukraine, its southern neighbour, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As expected, https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-dont-ukraine-bomb-the-convoy.html has been officially registered as a candidate for the Russian presidential election this March. 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.
"We're now going to a place where we can be safe and we hope we can leave safely." Given how the Ukraine conflict is going, such an eventuality cannot be ruled out. The UK's defence secretary has also warned that we need to be prepared for a war. In his first major speech on defence, Grant Shapps said the country was moving from a "post war to a pre-war world".
The Kremlin has criticised Britain’s announcement of new legislation to target Russian firms and oligarchs in the event of a war in Ukraine as an “outright attack on business” and has threatened to retaliate. Ukraine has also seen a spate of thousands of bomb threats phoned into police stations across the country – there were more than 3,000 in the first three weeks of the year, all of them false. Ukraine’s interior minister Denys Monastyrsky has given a briefing saying a group of people who were planning mass riots in Kyiv were detained by authorities on Sunday. Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, starts his speech by thanking China – which opposed – and the three countries that abstained from the vote to hold the meeting. I'm told Boris Johnson's planned call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today has been cancelled.When the Gray report landed the Russians were asked to shift the time - but they couldn't. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss summoned Russia's ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, for the second time this week to ask him to explain the "illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine".
Neither Russia nor Ukraine give details of their own losses, so reliable numbers are extremely difficult. But Russians losses have been especially heavy in recent weeks, with several hundred deaths every day on the battlefields of the east. Putin watchers believe he will seek to extend control of the four regions that he has declared to be part of Russia, not just in Donbas, but towards the key city of Zaporizhzhia.
The prime minister is to use an extraordinary summit of leaders of Nato on Friday afternoon to press for Russia to be excluded from Swift, which allows financial transactions to be made around the world. A Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Diamond, has set sail to be on standby in the eastern Mediterranean. The Type 45 destroyer is joining offshore patrol vessel HMS Trent, with four additional RAF Typhoon jets being deployed to Cyprus to take part in patrols. Mr Heappey told the House of Commons that further troops were being sent to Estonia earlier than planned to help the Nato ally. A total of 1,000 troops are on standby to help Ukraine's neighbouring countries handle refugees fleeing Ukraine.
Nato’s system of collective security means that if Russia were to attack one Nato nation, it would be at war with all 30 – including the UK and US. US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has described it in stark terms as a talk on “Russian aggression”. It will be the first time the global body will discuss recent threats of a Russian invasion, which has left world governments on edge.
- Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed four of eight Russia-launched drones overnight, the air force said.
- "Because this act of wanton and reckless aggression is an attack not just on Ukraine, it's an attack on democracy and freedom in eastern Europe and around the world."
- Residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, say windows in apartment blocks were shaking from constant blasts as the Ukrainian military and Russian forces exchanged shellfire.
- That figure cannot be confirmed, but it followed a US estimate of some 100,000 Ukrainians killed or wounded by November.
We have now sanctioned over 1,500 people and entities since Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. "Where the Ukrainians have an advantage is they're fighting for their own territory and all that massive firepower is going to be hard to use as an occupation force, as NATO found out in Afghanistan. He said the UK will likely fly planes over neighbouring countries, such as Poland, where they can see into Ukraine but will not be directly involved in the conflict. Condemnation from the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was swift, saying the UK stands with Ukraine and will work with our international partners to respond to this "terrible act of aggression". Western powers are acutely aware this crisis is being closely watched by the rest of the world.
- He said there will likely be an initial phase where Russian and Ukrainian troops are fighting on the ground in Donbas and potentially around Kyiv but Russia will take control of the air very quickly.
- Despite warnings from the US and its Nato allies that any invasion by Russia of Ukraine would have "severe economic consequences," Moscow's military build-up on the border continues.
- On Friday Defence Secretary Ben Wallace will also travel to Russia as part of the diplomatic talks.
If Russia did decide to invade Ukraine, the senior Western intelligence official said large numbers of people would be displaced. Despite warnings from the US and its Nato allies that any invasion by Russia of Ukraine would have "severe economic consequences," Moscow's military build-up on the border continues. Russia might use the crisis to launch cyber and other hybrid attacks on Nato countries. It could even send troops to the three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. According to Reuters, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said representatives were now returning to their respective capitals for further consultation. Russia additionally shared that talks between two will then continue "in the next few days".