Nord Stream 2, the completed but not yet open gas pipeline between Germany and Russia, may also be killed if Russia escalates tensions. Ultimately, it comes down to the price the populations in the United States and Europe are prepared to pay,” said Richard Connolly, a lecturer in political economy at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham. Such an invasion would force Russia to move into areas that are bitterly hostile toward it. That increases the likelihood of a prolonged resistance (possibly even one backed by the US) — and an invasion could turn into an occupation. “The sad reality is that Russia could take as much of Ukraine as it wants, but it can’t hold it,” said Melinda Haring, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. No country can join the alliance without the unanimous buy-in of all 30 member countries, and many have opposed Ukraine’s membership, in part because it doesn’t meet the conditions on democracy and rule of law.
Russia says some of its troops are being withdrawn from areas near the Ukraine border - but Nato says it can see no evidence of a withdrawal. The US responds to Russia’s list of demands, refusing to rule out Ukraine joining Nato in the future. In response, President Putin accuses the West of ignoring Russia’s concerns. Russian troops begin arriving in Belarus for joint military exercises.
Accusations abound after deadly Russian plane crash
As we look ahead to several more months of war, experts have told Sky News the "pendulum is beginning to swing towards Ukraine". But instead, curfews are in place in the cities of Kyiv or Kharkiv amid intelligence Moscow could use the anniversary as an excuse for fresh civilian attacks. "Russia can pose a major conventional military threat to NATO for the first time since the 1990s in a timeframe set to a considerable extent by how much the Kremlin invests in its military."
- "The nightmare scenario would be that the states close to Russia double down on aid to Ukraine while those farther west decide to force a deal on Putin's terms. Then Europe itself could fracture," he says.
- Kara-Murza, who suffers from a nerve disorder after surviving two poison attacks, was jailed for 25 years last April for treason and spreading "false information" about the Russian war in Ukraine.
- Russia has begun a large-scale military attack on Ukraine, its southern neighbour, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- “If you are talking about mass mobilisation to defend the homeland, that is hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.
- US President Joe Biden said Mr Putin had "chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering".
- Russia accused Kyiv of downing a large military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war to an exchange on Wednesday, after a crash in the Belgorod region that killed all 74 people onboard.
The government says it wants to spend 2.5% of national income on defence - but has still not said when. He was not making a case for conscription or for an imminent call up of volunteers. Instead, he was urging Britain to prepare for a mass mobilisation of tens of thousands of people, should war break 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". But the official said Russia could also initiate actions against Nato members such as cyber and hybrid warfare, and even physical attacks.
What could happen if Russia wins war in Ukraine? Experts consider the scenarios
He also said that NATO didn't put additional troops in the region "so it wasn't like the addition of those countries created this military force on Russia's doorstep." A lot of the stark warnings we are hearing from our own government should be seen in that light. What we might want to worry about more is the impact on energy prices. Your parents are likely to pay even more for gas and electricity because of this crisis. As long as Russia's potential invasion force remains massed on the borders then even the bustling Ukrainian capital Kyiv, and other cities, will not be safe from attack. Only aircraft deployed to protect energy facilities, or those carrying top Russian or foreign officials, will be allowed to fly with special permission in the designated zones, according to the Vedomosti daily newspaper.
- Around 80% of the male population complete some form of military service.
- Putin has been fixated on reclaiming some semblance of empire, lost with the fall of the Soviet Union.
- While he said such an attack is unlikely now, "our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible".
- A year ago, Ukraine's international military support was solid with NATO pledging to support Kyiv for "as long as it takes" as it defended itself against Russia's invasion launched in February 2022.
- The Russians had some tactical success, flushing out Ukrainian soldiers from the forest and a few villages.
Before Finland joined NATO earlier this year, no new countries had joined the alliance since 2004, and even then it was "pretty tiny countries" — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — Taylor noted. He added that without Ukraine's Donbas region, "Russia would not have been a great power at the end of the 19th and into the early years of the 20th century." https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-many-troops-does-ukraine-have.html , cofounder of Yale University's Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies program, said Ukraine has been important to the "Russian political imagination for decades, if not centuries."
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Some experts noted Putin has his own domestic pressures to deal with, including the coronavirus and a struggling economy, and he may think such an adventure will boost his standing at home, just like it did in 2014. Germany has a new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, after 16 years of Angela Merkel, and the new coalition government is still trying to establish its foreign policy. Germany, along with other European countries, imports Russian natural gas, and energy prices are spiking right now. France has elections in April, and French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to carve out a spot for himself in these negotiations. Biden is still trying to put the transatlantic alliance back together after the distrust that built up during the Trump administration. Some of Biden’s diplomatic blunders have alienated European partners, specifically that aforementioned messy Afghanistan withdrawal and the nuclear submarine deal that Biden rolled out with the UK and Australia that caught France off guard.
Putin believed that in Zelenskyy "he had someone he could manipulate in Ukraine," Hall said. According to Graham, there is no evidence that Putin was under public pressure to invade Ukraine, which suggests at least some of his reasoning was personal. The experts said the key to understanding Russia's repeated claim of Ukrainian Nazis is that they use the term differently to the West.
- Retired members of essential professions – doctors, nurses, morticians, police – would be urged back into service.
- Russia has built up tens of thousands of troops along the Ukrainian border, an act of aggression that could spiral into the largest military conflict on European soil in decades.
- When the Soviet Union broke up in the early ’90s, Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, had the third largest atomic arsenal in the world.
It also doesn’t eliminate the possibility that Russia and the US will be stuck in this standoff for months longer, with Ukraine caught in the middle and under sustained threat from Russia. Right now, the toughest sanctions the Biden administration is reportedly considering are some level of financial sanctions on Russia’s biggest banks — a step the Obama administration didn’t take in 2014 — and an export ban on advanced technologies. Penalties on Russian oligarchs and others close to the regime are likely also on the table, as are some other forms of targeted sanctions.
- The West makes clear that if Putin goes and is replaced by a more moderate leader, then Russia will see the lifting of some sanctions and a restoration of normal diplomatic relations.
- Some 40 villages sit in between the Ukrainian army's area of control and the breakaway territories controlled by Russian-backed militias.
- Weather conditions are deteriorating in Ukraine, with mud, freezing rain, snow and ice making offensive and reconnaissance operations challenging.
- Russia says the crisis can only be solved if the West agrees to a list of demands, including a guarantee that Ukraine will never join Nato.
- Professor Clarke says that for the UK and the US it's not a question of political will, but one of sheer capacity.
- 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.