The United States might have to push to reform outdated elements of the world’s security architecture, such as the UN Security Council, so that they no longer reflect a bygone era in which a small group of big powers got to determine the course of international affairs. Persuading countries in regions such as Africa and the Middle East to deny Russia its imperial schemes will require a major shift in how the United States and its allies describe the stakes of the war and even in how they articulate their broader worldview, Hill argued. Rather than framing the war as a struggle between democracies and autocracies or East versus West, U.S. and European leaders should make the case that the Kremlin, in its thirst for empire, has “violated the UN Charter [and] international laws” that keep other countries safe as well.
One possibility is that he would be replaced by someone from his inner circle who then would make big concessions to end the war, perhaps even a return to the pre-invasion status quo with tweaks. But why would he (and it will certainly be a male) do that if Russia controls large swathes of Ukrainian land? A new Russian leader might eventually cut a deal, providing sanctions are lifted, but assuming that Putin’s exit would be a magic bullet is unrealistic.
Kherson's underground resistance: How ordinary people fought Russia from the shadows
A Christmas Eve story in the New York Times claimed that Putin might be trying to find a way out. He was reported to have sent messages through “multiple channels” since September that he was prepared to do a deal, including freezing the fighting along the current front lines. There have been a number of proposals in circulation, from China’s last February and those later from the BRICS countries. They are problematic for Putin because if taken seriously they would demand far more of Russia than Ukraine (as Zelensky was quick to notice).
- Now the U.S. and European militaries are training Ukrainian forces in Europe.
- Children look out from a carriage window as a train prepares to depart from a station in Lviv, Ukraine, on March 3, 2022.
- Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didn’t yield the immediate results for which experts hoped.
- They change the narrative, and the discussion on the need for a ceasefire and negotiations has started,” he said.
A U.S. intelligence report revealed Russia had lost 87 percent of its pre-invasion forces, or 315,000 troops and with a renewed mobilization expected after the election showing Putin's willingness to sacrifice his own people. In December, he approved spending that will see the military take up around 30 percent of Russia's total budget in 2024. "With the stalled counter-offensive, there is widespread pessimism about Ukraine's chances to defeat Russia and regain the occupied territories," Peter Rutland, professor of Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut, told Newsweek. "However, that does not mean that there are likely to be serious peace talks and a possible end to the war in 2024.
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That effort would require extensive U.S. involvement as well, and could serve as a springboard for China to assert itself as a diplomatic power, as the United States did during peace talks after World War I. One year ago, Russia launched a war that many never expected it to wage and assumed it would quickly win against a cowed Ukraine and its allies. For a war that has defied expectations, those questions might seem impossible to answer.
- The US inflation rate, at 8.6 percent last month, is the highest in 40 years, while the Congressional Budget Office has revised estimates of economic growth—3.1 percent this year— down to 2.2 percent for 2023 and 1.5 percent for 2024.
- In addition, nearly 13 million Ukrainians (including nearly two-thirds of all its children) are either displaced in their own country or refugees in various parts of Europe, mainly Poland.
- But Russia under Putin has never ended its wars at the negotiating table; at best it has frozen them, keeping its options open.
- The obvious strategy is to try to break the road and rail corridor linking Russia proper to occupied Crimea, so cutting off the peninsula from its hinterland, with an attack towards Melitopol or Berdansk.
The problem with the EU lies with Hungary’s veto of any funds to Ukraine, but either this will soon be overcome or, even if not, there are workarounds that will lead eventually to the desired result. The problem in the US reflects Republican efforts to tie support for overseas causes to action to stop immigrants coming in from Mexico. There is enough money left for one more military aid package, but then it depends on a new deal. The bigger question was whether the crisis would destabilise the regime. Putin dithered, not dealing with the dispute while in its early stages, and then could only be rescued by doing a deal with people he’d just called traitors, albeit one on which he later reneged (as with so many of his deals).
“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. WASHINGTON and ROME — Germany’s promise early this year to send tanks to Ukraine marked the country’s latest concession and provided a cap to the gradual escalation in the kind of equipment allies were supplying. Meanwhile, any prospect of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine look slim despite efforts to bring both sides to the negotiating table.
- 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.
- This means that the willingness of the general population to suffer in the face of high costs is of the utmost importance.
- Senior officials from around 40 countries, including China, and India, held talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the weekend with the aim of agreeing on key principles that could underline a future settlement of the war.
- A lot was riding on Ukraine’s offensive, including the added value that might result from western equipment transfers and training programmes.
- But many experts I turned to were not seriously concerned about such an outcome.
- Still, the botched northern campaign and the serial failures of a military that had been infused with vast sums of money and supposedly subjected to widespread modernization and reform was stunning.