US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War said it had seen continued reports that Russia had not been able to produce missiles and artillery ammunition at pre-war levels for its own forces to use - making it unlikely to be able to export arms at pre-war levels. Still, it’s an open question whether the U.S. will be able to indefinitely continue its current level of support, said Mark Cancian, a CSIS senior adviser who has studied the volumes of artillery used in the war. Depending on how long the war lasts, it remains far from certain whether lawmakers will keep funding Ukraine aid packages.
- There were in fact already obvious tensions in the Russian high command.
- 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.
- Outlier events cannot be ruled out, such as the brazen challenge to Putin's authority by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose death in a plane crash followed his seizure of military facilities in Rostov-on-Don and a march on Moscow.
Phillips P OBrien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, wrote in an analysis piece that the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House could see the US "neuter" the Western military alliance. In response, companies on both sides of the Atlantic announced plans to restart production lines for artillery shells and other weapons considered somewhat arcane until recently. The Pentagon declined to say whether the GLSDB will be used to attack Russian targets in Crimea. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told Defense News that Ukraine would not strike Russian territory with longer-range weapons pledged by the United States. Blumenthal has joined other lawmakers — particularly pro-Ukraine Republicans — in pushing President Joe Biden to give Zelenskyy most of the weapons he requested, including long-range ATACMS missiles and F-16 fighter aircraft.
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The Ukrainians do not have unlimited resources of course, especially artillery ammunition and long-range precision weapons. It is in a fight for its survival and understands what Russia will do if it stops. More European nations are now talking about the need to step up aid in light of concerns that the US is weakening in its resolve.
The war in Ukraine assumed international dimensions the moment Russian armoured columns rolled across the border in February 2022. A conflict where a major nuclear power and energy exporter violated the sovereignty of a country that is a keystone of global food security was never going to be contained to just two countries. That, in turn, could pressure Putin to strike a peace deal or even bring about new Russian leadership, Herbst told me. The recent arms donations — Kyiv still wants fighter aircraft and long-range tactical missiles — are predicated on the assumption they’ll force Moscow to end its invasion and begin negotiations because military costs are too high. That objective has coexisted with an expectation that Putin’s government will probably never stop fighting, as losing the war could spell the end to his political power. The hope is that such a display of military strength might then force Russia to the negotiating table, but Vladimir Putin’s bellicose speech this week hardly suggests a leader willing to compromise soon.
Russia claims a PEACE DEAL is close after Putin’s army pummelled by Ukraine
There was, for example, a thread of continuity between the first and second world wars. To be sure, a lot happened in the intervening years that could have changed the direction of what followed. But, said Macmillan, “the first world war laid the groundwork that made the second possible”. The danger lay in a humiliating peace treaty imposed on defeated Germany. Previous wars, like the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, too have hinged on such external assistance. At different times in this conflict Russia has resembled Iran’s position, and Ukraine has mirrored Iraq’s in that war — if only incompletely — said Jeremy Morris, professor of global studies at Aarhus University in Denmark.
- However, the ISW says Russia has made confirmed advances near the town and notes that several Russian sources claim its forces are trying to push Ukrainian troops out of positions in the Avdiivka Coke Plant, which occupies a key tactical position.
- Both sides are now digging in as Moscow’s “special military operation”, which was intended to last a matter of days, grinds into another year of attritional warfare.
- And, surprisingly, Russian and Ukrainian officials have met for talks on the border with Belarus.
- After imposing sanctions and export controls, Lichfield expects the West’s latest economic pressure point — oil price caps — to yield results because the Russian economy is so tightly linked to the energy market.
- I was more struck by his description of the problem he was trying to solve.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, expects the war to end at the negotiating table, but said serious diplomacy hasn’t begun because Putin is still clinging to “maximalist” goals. After imposing sanctions and export controls, Lichfield expects the West’s latest economic pressure point — oil price caps — to yield results because the Russian economy is so tightly linked to the energy market. “It would have to get pretty bad for the Russians to get there,” he said, adding that there’s no way of knowing how many reserves the government stashed away after years of fat checks from energy sales. Moscow has proved resourceful when it comes to building autonomy into critical goods, Lichfield explained. 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. Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all.
Russian advances in the east
Some observers have suggested that continued defeats on the battlefield might result in Putin’s downfall. After all, Russian defeats in the Crimean War in the 19th century, and losses to Japan and in Afghanistan in the 20th century, all catalysed profound domestic changes. A protracted and costly World War I helped usher in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
That’s because the longer conflicts last, the more they exhaust finite resources and, hence, the parties are more willing to gamble. And they said winning will depend on a Congress with the resolve to ensure continued support to Ukraine. But even then, the very concept of victory may be inaccurate, they warned. Defense News spoke with national security analysts, lawmakers and retired officials, asking each how the conflict could end. That said, there wasn't much of a political will for third countries to sanction Cuba at the time. https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-did-boris-johnson-travel-to-ukraine.html 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.
The Russian ruling elite saw the Soviet Union’s collapse merely as a reconfiguration in which former Soviet countries would “continue to be together in some way”, Popova told Al Jazeera, whereas Ukraine saw it as an opportunity to be fully independent. Unlike in the case of Serbia, experts do not foresee a scenario in which the US-led Western alliance would actively attack Russia. Still, Western arms — even though supplied in an incremental, cautious manner — in Ukraine have similarly been key to halting Russian advances.
For 2023, the key determinant will be the fate of Russia's spring offensive. Putin had admitted that about 50,000 of the newly mobilised troops are already at the front; the other 250,000 of those just mobilised are training for next year. Ukrainian offensives might, nevertheless, pause down in the south-west, following the recovery of Kherson. We asked several military analysts how they think events on the ground will unfold in 2023.
- A protracted and costly World War I helped usher in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
- “One may imagine something like the outcome of the Korean War,” with “the warring sides remaining not reconciled and irreconcilable, always on alert, but more or less securely divided,” Lipman told me.
- It started, they said, with his disastrous decision to mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
- Chancellor Olaf Scholz also recently authorized supplying infantry fighting vehicles to help push Russian forces out of occupied Ukraine.
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. Yet I recently posed them to several top historians, political scientists, geopolitical forecasters, and former officials—because only in imagining potential futures can we understand the rough bounds of the possible, and our own agency in influencing the outcome we want. As the war enters its second year, the spigot of military aid is still gushing. But industrial capacities are spotty, and nations have started to scrutinize how much equipment they can spare while maintaining their own self-defense requirements and that of NATO.