The Kremlin and Vladimir Putin are ready to face the challenges of the Ukrainian war of colonial reconquest and Russian-imposed military actions
President Vladimir V. Putin plans to declare on Friday that some 40,000 square miles of eastern and southern Ukraine will become part of Russia — an annexation broadly denounced by the West, but a signal that the Russian leader is prepared to raise the stakes in the seven-month-old war.
The Russian leader spoke in the chandeliered St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace — the same place where he declared in March 2014 that the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was part of Russia.
Many of Mr. Putin’s cabinet Ministers and four Russian-imposed leaders of the occupied Ukrainian regions sat in the audience.
Ukraine and its Western partners have called the annexation illegal, with the Biden administration saying that it is ready to impose additional sanctions on Russia if it proceeds. As Mr. Putin spoke, leaders in the European Union issued a statement saying that they “firmly reject and unequivocally condemn” the annexation.
Sanctions have not been enough to shake Russia’s determination to restore its empire at the cost of peaceful neighboring states. Instead of continuing to set up more targets for Russia to knock down, the US and Ukraine’s other Western backers should change the terms of the conflict. The international community must make Russia pay for its brutal war of colonial reconquest in other ways as well. It is long been known that more direct intervention is needed.
He reeled off a litany of Western military actions stretching over centuries — from the British Opium War in China in the 19th century to Allied firebombings of Germany and the Vietnam and Korean Wars.
The United States was the only country to have used nuclear weapons in warfare, he said. Mr. Putin added that the precedent had been created.
Monday’s attacks, and further strikes throughout the week, were evidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin lashing out after a series of setbacks in the war that have put him under pressure domestically.
The annexations serve the interests of the Kremlin. Russia only partly occupies the four provinces, and Mr. Putin and his top aides have asserted that Moscow will then be defending its own territory from attacks by Ukraine, rather than the other way around.
Such expectations naturally ratcheted up Ukrainian war aims. President Volodymyr Zelensky was once a member of the peace-deal camp in Ukraine. “Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it,” he declared one month into the conflict. He calls for the entire Russian-occupied territory to be cleansed of invaders. Polls indicate that Ukrainians will settle for nothing less. As battles rage across Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine’s leaders and some of their Western backers are already dreaming of Nuremberg-style trials of Mr. Putin and his inner circle in Moscow.
Friday’s events include a celebration on Red Square. The Kremlin will approve the decrees next week, according to Dmitri S. Peskov.
The Russian Refugee from Lysychansk after the February 24 Ukrainian Reionization Referendum: State of the Art and Implications for Russia
The moves follow staged referendums in occupied territory, which were held in defiance of international law. Much of the provinces’ civilian populations has fled fighting since the war began in February, and people who did vote sometimes did so at gunpoint.
Following the capture over the weekend of Lyman, a strategic rail hub and gateway to the eastern Donbas region, Ukrainian forces showed no sign of stopping, pushing eastward toward the city of Lysychansk, which Russia seized three months ago after bloody fighting. Any loss of territory in the Donbas undermines Mr. Putin’s objectives for the war he launched in February, which has focused on seizing and incorporating the region.
The recent draft of hundreds of thousands of civilians into military service that encountered opposition in Russia is one of many hurdles that Mr. Putin faces to reestablish his control over the war.
His spokesman said Mr. Putin is expected to deliver a fiery speech. He is likely to downplay his military’s struggles in Ukraine and rising domestic dissent. He will probably ignore worldwide denunciations of discredited referendums held in occupied Ukraine on joining Russia, where some were made to vote at gunpoint.
Russia’s retreat from Lyman, which sits on a riverbank that has served as a natural division between the Russian and Ukrainian front lines, came after weeks of fierce fighting.
The debacle in the city of Lyman, a strategic railway hub in the eastern region of Donbas, was a new blow to the Russian leadership already facing withering criticism at home.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote a candid article about the last days of Russian occupation in Lyman, which states that Russian forces had desertion, poor planning, and delayed arrival of reserves.
Russia is sending newly drafted conscripts to the war front in eastern Ukraine, but so far, according to a Ukrainian general and Western analysts, the attacks have proven ineffectual and they expect Russians to be casualties.
The war in Ukraine is motivating a far-right push for more influence in the West, because it’s giving them a chance to build up their relationship with President Putin. It is not unusual for people in Europe to point to their country’s hardship as the reason they don’t want to spend money on Ukrainians, as they see it as a way to promote their views. For now, support for Ukraine remains strong in Europe and the US, although flagging among Republicans.
A statement was made by the leaders of European countries in support of Ukraine joining NATO. Pope Francis made a strong plea for an end to the war.
You can read past recaps here. Here, you can find more context and more in-depth stories from NPR. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.
The Kremlin reflected the disarray of its forces on the ground, where territory was rapidly changing hands, acknowledging that it did not yet know what new borders Russia would claim in southern Ukraine. The spokesman for Mr. Putin said that the leader will continue to consult with the population on the borders.
Odesa, Ukraine: The aftermath of the Kiev attack on Sunday, April 2: a red line crossing the Ukraine’s biggest power plant?
Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst. He was a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe prior to joining the Atlantic Council. He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion.
In some ways, Monday’s attacks were not a surprise – especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused Kyiv of attacking the Kerch bridge, calling it an “act of terrorism.”
The strikes were close to the government quarter and can’t be overstated. Western governments should see it as a red line being crossed on this 229th day of the war.
As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet in between air raid sirens, with reports that three missiles and five kamikaze drones were shot down. (Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers, and chatter of plans for upcoming weddings and parties).
After Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was struck by multiple strikes on apartment buildings, there were attacks again on Monday. Several hundred people were injured and at least 17 died.
Several people were killed and power was cut in pockets of the country as a result of the assault. Giles said they were an indication of the nature of the threat from Russia. “For many months now, the Russian objective has been to destroy Ukraine rather than possess it.”
The calm in Ukrainian cities away from the country’s battlefields was shattered by two sounds this week; the air raid sirens and the Russian attacks.
Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.
Just as many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home, the attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence.
The only bridge linking mainland Russia and the peninsula of Crimea can’t be overstated for Putin. It can be seen that the attack took place a day after his 70th birthday and that it adds to his embarrassment and shame.
Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. The world’s longest sea crossing bridge was constructed in the year 2001 by the Chinese government after they reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong. The road bridge opened after about two years of delays.
The Reaction of Ukrainians to the Nov. 6th Explosion and Russia’s Implications for the Security and Security of the Russian Territorium
The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was instantaneous: humorous memes lit up social media channels like a Christmas tree. Many people shared their jubilation through text messages.
In the event of a threat to Russia’s territorial integrity, Putin said that they would use all weapon systems available to them. This is not bluffing.
Putin was placed on thin ice because of the criticism he was facing at home, as well as the act of selfish desperation.
The enormous US and western support of Ukraine means, Petraeus observes, that while the Russians may be preparing to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Ukraine in a new offensive, they will face off in the coming months with better-trained and better-organized Ukrainian soldiers armed with American longer-range missiles, armored vehicles and a tremendous amount of ammunition. And Petraeus says his money is still on the Ukrainians.
What is crucially important now is for Washington and other allies to use urgent telephone diplomacy to urge China and India – which presumably still have some leverage over Putin – to resist the urge to use even more deadly weapons.
It’s difficult to imagine a World War II style victory. Most wars end in negotiations. This one is unlikely to be different. The task of the west is to ensure that Ukraine’s success carries over into negotiations and that it can get a very strong hand. It is likely that Putin will be brought to the negotiating table by Ukrainian victories.
Air and missile defense are Kyiv’s greatest needs at this stage in the conflict. And reported US plans to supply Ukraine with the advanced Patriot missile defense system are an essential element for keeping Kyiv in the fight.
The time has also come for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions – but for that to have sufficient impact, Turkey and Gulf states, which receive many Russian tourists, need to be pressured to come on board.
Russian retaliation has been expanded by the Ukrainians as they push back Russians who were seized in the early days of the war.
The Russian War in Ukraine and Its Observed Contributions to the War on the Dialogue of the Cold War with the Kremlin
The war is sliding towards a new phase that is unpredictable. Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, said this was the third, fourth, or fifth war they had been observing.
The stakes of the war have been raised as winter approaches. Giles said that Russia might want to keep it up. But the Ukrainian successes of recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin, too. “They are able to do things that take us by surprise, so let’s get used to it,” Giles said.
Oleksii Hromov, a senior Ukrainian military official, said last week that Kyiv’s forces have recaptured some 120 settlements since late September as they advance in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions. Ukraine claimed it had liberated more settlements in Kherson.
Russia said it would help to evacuate residents of occupied Kherson to other areas as the Ukrainian offensive continued to make gains. The announcement came a few minutes after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way, signalling that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.
These counter-offensives have shifted the momentum of the war and disproved a suggestion, built up in the West and in Russia during the summer, that while Ukraine could stoutly defend territory, it lacked the ability to seize ground.
The Russians are trying to avoid a collapse in their frontline so they can use it against the Ukrainians during the winter, according to a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
It would be a huge success for the Russians if they can get to Christmas with the frontline looking exactly like it is.
Russia has massed replacement soldiers and more units to begin an offensive to take portions of the south that they do not own, while also setting up defensive positions in other areas they control.
Landing a major blow in Donbas would send another powerful signal, and Ukraine will be eager to improve on its gains before temperatures plummet on the battlefield, and the full impact of rising energy prices is felt around Europe.
There are many reasons as to why the Ukrainians want to do things quickly. Ukraine and its supporters in the West have to contend with winter energy crises in Europe and the destruction of power and infrastructure in the country.
The electricity company in Ukraine, Ukrenergo, says it has been able to keep up the power supply after the Russian missile attacks on Monday and Tuesday. The Ukrainian Prime Minister warned of a lot of work to be done to fix damaged equipment and asked citizens to cut down on their electricity use during peak hours.
The Russian Air Force in the Early Stages of World War II: The Challenge for the Russo-Russian War on Balinese and Russian-Israeli Forces
Some Western officials think the Russian air force will play a bigger part in the Russian battle plan. Last week, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mentioned that Russia has a large number of aircraft in its inventory.
Jeremy Fleming, the UK’s spy chief, said in a speech on Tuesday that he was certain that Russian commanders were aware that their supplies were running out.
That conclusion was also reached by the ISW, which said in its daily update on the conflict Monday that the strikes “wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.”
The war is close to its first anniversary later this month and Ukraine has continued to pressure western leaders to give it more advanced weaponry to fight against Russia. In January, the US, Britain, and Germany agreed to send modern battle tanks, but now Ukraine is pushing for fighter jets and long-range missiles.
The missiles are going to be a feature of occasional outrages because the Russians don’t have enough to sustain that kind of high-tempo missile assault.
There may be help for Putin in the near future. Concerns about deepened military cooperation between the close allies were raised when Alexander Lukashenko said that a group of troops would be sent to Russia. Belarus has been complaining of alleged Ukrainian threats to its security in recent days, which observers say could be a prelude to some level of involvement.
Giles said the reopening of a northern front would be a new challenge for Ukraine. Should Putin choose to focus on regaining the territory that has been wrested from him, he said it would be a new route into the region.
One year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine believing he’d take Kyiv within days, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky struck a defiant note, insisting that he was “certain” his country would win the war.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that Ukraine needed “more” systems to better halt missile attacks, ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
Air defense systems have blunted Russian missile and drone barrages and discouraged its air force from conducting missions directly over Ukrainian airspace.
Ukraine “badly needed” modern systems such as the IRIS-T that arrived this week from Germany and the NASAMS expected from the United States , Bronk said.
The Soviet Warfare of the Cold War: Vladimir Petraeus and the Security Threat to the Ukrainian People in the Light of the Oslo Accord
Giles said that Russia can use many different ways to make it personal for the people of Ukraine, not only because of their own support for them, but also because of their support for others in Europe.
The former US commander in Iraq, Petraeus: It could if Russia was Mobilized by Putin. However, to date, the mobilizations have been partial, as Putin seems to fear how the country might respond to total mobilization. More Russians left the country than were reported to the stations in response to the call-up of reserves.
If Russia were able to capture the part of Donetsk that is still in Ukrainian hands, they would have to destroy a region the size of Connecticut. There are already issues with the supply of munitions to the Russian front lines, according to Ukrainian and Western officials.
NATO will hold nuclear deterrence exercises starting Monday. NATO has warned Russia not to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine but says the “Steadfast Noon” drills are a routine, annual training activity.
Russian agents arrested eight people who they suspected of being involved in the bomb attack on a bridge.
Two men shot at Russian troops preparing to deploy to Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 15 before being killed themselves, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Oct. 15.
WASHINGTON — The Ukrainian military has a window of opportunity to make gains against Russia’s army over the next six weeks, according to American intelligence assessments, if it can continue its push in the south and the northeast before muddy ground and cloud cover force the opposing armies to pause and regroup.
Petraeus has spent decades studying warfare and practicing its application. He was the US and coalition commander of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and later served as director of the CIA. He obtained his PhD from Princeton University, where he studied the lessons the American military took from the Vietnam War. The forthcoming book is called ” Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine” and is co-authored with British historian Andrew Roberts.
First, he’s seeking to distract his nation from the blindingly obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and utterly failing to achieve even the vastly scaled back objectives of his invasion.
In short, there is every incentive for Putin to prolong the conflict as long as possible to allow many of these forces in the West to kick in. A long, cold winter in Europe, persistent inflation and higher interest rates leading to a recession on both sides of the Atlantic could mean irresistible pressure on already skeptical leaders to dial back on financial and military support.
This ability to keep going depends on a host of variables – ranging from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter, to the popular will across a broad range of nations with often conflicting priorities.
In the early hours of Friday in Brussels, European Union powers agreed on a plan to regulate energy prices that have been surging as a result of embargoes on Russian imports and the sudden cut in Russian natural gas supplies.
These include an emergency cap on the benchmark European gas trading hub – the Dutch Title Transfer Facility – and permission for EU gas companies to create a cartel to buy gas on the international market.
While French President Emmanuel Macron waxed euphoric leaving the summit, which he described as having “maintained European unity,” he conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism.
Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. The ministers need to work out details with Germany, which is concerned that the caps would encourage higher consumption.
Putin has a dream about these divisions. Manifold forces in Europe could prove central to achieving success from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, which amounts to the continent failing to agree on essentials.
Germany and France are at odds on a lot of these issues. Though in an effort to reach some accommodation, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have scheduled a conference call for Wednesday.
The Italian PM’s Legacy: Pressure on Russia from Italy’s First Lady Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, and the Heads of State
There is a new government in Italy. The first woman to ever serve as prime minister of Italy tried to forget the past when she took the job. One of her far-right partners has a lot of admiration for Putin.
According to the LaPresse audio clip Berlusconi said he returned Putin’s gesture with bottles of Lambrusco wine because he knew him as a peaceful and sensible person.
The other leading member of the ruling Italian coalition, Matteo Salvini, named Saturday as deputy prime minister, said during the campaign, “I would not want the sanctions [on Russia] to harm those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.”
At the same time, Poland and Hungary, longtime ultra-right-wing soulmates united against liberal policies of the EU that seemed calculated to reduce their influence, have now disagreed over Ukraine. Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban has pro-Putin sentiment and Poland has taken offense.
In Washington, Kevin McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take control, said that people were going to be sitting in a recession and they wouldn’t write a blank check. They just won’t do it.”
The Congressional progressive caucus called on Biden to open talks with Russia on ending the conflict while its troops are still occupying vast stretches of the country and missiles and drones are hitting deep into the interior.
The caucus chair sent a statement to reporters clarifying their remarks in support of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.
Indeed, while the US has proffered more than $60 billion in aid since Biden took office, when Congress authorized $40 billion for Ukraine last May, only Republicans voted against the latest aid package.
The West is putting more pressure on Russia. The State Department released a report last week on the impact of sanctions on Russia.
The report said that Russian hypersonic missiles have been completely halted due to the lack of necessary semi-conductors. Plants making anti-aircraft systems have stopped manufacturing and Russia has reverted to soviet-era defense stocks for replenishment. The end of the Soviet era occurred over 30 years ago.
Putin has tried several times to establish black market networks abroad to get what he needs from other countries, like North Korea, which has a flourishing black market. The United States has already uncovered and recently sanctioned vast networks of such shadow companies and individuals centered in hubs from Taiwan to Armenia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, and Luxembourg to source high-tech goods for Russia’s collapsing military-industrial complex.
The Justice Department charged individuals and companies for trying to smuggle high- tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.
The World Affairs of the Ukraine War: How the Cold War in the Middle East has Become More Important than It Did Prior to the First World War
Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a columnist for The Washington Post, a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, and is a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has more opinion on it.
Russia will continue to look for replacement weapons as it attempts to launch missiles at Ukraine. And Iran may not be the only country willing to supply Russia in the future.
Since the relationship between Moscow and Tehran has grown stronger, all of Iran’s enemies in the Middle East, NATO members and nations that are still interested in restoring the nuclear deal with Iran, are keeping an eye on it.
The war in Ukraine has been defined by several key trends this past year: Russia has underachieved. Ukraine has overachieved. Western support for Ukraine has remained surprisingly strong.
The historian Yuval Noah Harari has argued that no less than the direction of human history is at stake, because a victory by Russia would reopen the door to wars of aggression, to invasions of one country by another, something that since the Second World War most nations had come to reject as categorically unacceptable.
Much of what happens today far from the battlefields still has repercussions there. When oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, decided last month to slash production, the US accused the Saudis of helping Russia fund the war by boosting its oil revenues. (An accusation the Saudis deny).
Iran’s Weapons Geopolitical Gghitis: Why We Require Israel to Leave our Defensive Systems
As others have noted, Israel is reluctant to let go of its defensive systems partly because it could need them for its own defense. Hezbollah in the north has missiles and Hamas in the south has rockets.
A UN and Turkey-brokered agreement allowed Ukraine’s maritime corridors to reopen, but this week Moscow temporarily suspended that agreement after Russian Navy ships were struck at the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Putin’s announcement was immediately followed by a surge in wheat prices on global commodity markets. Those prices partly determine how much people pay for bread in Africa and across the planet.
Higher prices can affect each person’s life. They pack a political punch when they have such powerful momentum. Inflation, worsened by the war, has put incumbent political leaders on the defensive in countless countries.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/opinions/ukraine-russia-iran-weapons-geopolitical-ghitis/index.html
U.S. response to the Russian attack on Ukraine: a “Goodwill gesture” from a former Pentagon official and the GOP’s Kevin McCarthy
And it’s not all on the fringes. After next week’s US elections, the leader of the GOP, Kevin McCarthy, indicated that the party might reduce aid to Ukraine. The letter called for negotiations was withdrawn by the Progressives. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official during the Obama administration, said they’re all bringing “a big smile to Putin’s face.”
Videos filmed by Ukrainian drones showing Russian soldiers being hit by fire in poorly equipped areas have supported the assertions of high casualty rates. The location of the videos on the front line cannot be determined because they have not been independently verified.
Russian forces are staging up to 80 assaults per day, General Zaluzhnyi said in the statement, which described a telephone conversation with an American general, Christopher G. Cavoli, the supreme allied commander in Europe.
“We discussed the situation at the front,” General Zaluzhnyi wrote. He said he had told his U.S. colleague that the Ukrainian forces were fighting back against the attackers.
According to an assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, there was no new ground gained by Russia in the eastern part of the country.
The Russian column that straggled along highways north of Kyiv and the battalions that were to the east of the capital left one month later. Moscow described the redeployment as a “goodwill gesture.” It was the first of many changes to Russia’s plans, exemplified by the regular changes of command and the wringing of hands among military Bloggers.
In the south, where Ukrainian troops are advancing toward the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, the Ukrainian military said Friday morning that its artillery battalions had fired more than 160 times at Russian positions over the past 24 hours, but it also reported Russian return fire into Ukrainian positions.
With Russian and Ukrainian forces apparently preparing for battle in Kherson, and conflicting signals over what may be coming, the remaining residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel to survive combat.
Cold War and the Cold War: Implications for Russia’s Security, Defence, and Intelligence (The case of the Soviet missile attack on Ukraine)
Now Poland is facing the repercussions from these attacks – and it’s not the only bordering country. Russian rockets have also knocked out power across neighboring Moldova, which is not a NATO member, and therefore attracted considerably less attention than the Polish incident.
Whatever the exact circumstances of the missile, one thing is clear. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia bears ultimate responsibility for its illegal war against Ukraine.
He has planted mines in vast stretches of territory in Kherson which have been withdrawn, just like the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia in the 1970s. Indeed, Cambodian de-mining experts have even been called in to assist with the herculean task facing Ukraine in 2022. Russian armies also left behind evidence of atrocities and torture similar to the Khmer Rouge.
Many of the Russia’s troops are ill-trained and ill-equipped. In many cases, those troops are meeting their deaths in the allotted time. And so we can expect to see more of that.
Indeed a hotline and Telegram channel, launched as a Ukrainian military intelligence project called “I want to live,” designed to assist Russian soldiers eager to defect, has taken off, reportedly booking some 3,500 calls in its first two months of activity.
Putin is becoming more isolated on the world stage. The G20 was a session that the only head of state stayed away from. Though Putin once lusted after a return to the G7 (known as the G8 before he was ousted after his seizure of Crimea), inclusion now seems but a distant dream. Russia’s sudden ban on 100 Canadians, including Canadian-American Jim Carrey, from entering the country only made the comparison with North Korea more striking.
Putin said it was part of a purge of Russian society from traitors and spies. Russian officials have suggested that people who left the country of their passport be stripped of it. Yet there are questions whether Russia can thrive without many of its best and brightest.
One leading Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, who has settled in Berlin after fleeing in March, told me last week that while he hoped this is not the case, he is prepared to accept the reality – like many of his countrymen, he may never be able to return to his homeland, to which he remains deeply attached.
Russian warnings for the Patriot system, and what they could do to help the country of Ukraine, says the Pentagon’s envoy for security assistance
The West is trying to get away from Russian oil and natural gas in order to deprive it of resources that will be used in this war. “We have understood and learnt our lesson that it was an unhealthy and unsustainable dependency, and we want reliable and forward-looking connections,” Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission told the G20 on Tuesday.
Putin dreamed that the conflict would cause more problems for the western alliance, but it is proved to be false. The French-German project for a next-generation jet fighter was due to move forward, but on Monday word surfaced that it was starting to move forward.
Above all, Putin still does not appear to have learned that revenge is not an appropriate way to act on or off the battlefield and in the final analysis is most likely to isolate and weaken Russia, perhaps irreversibly.
It requires a relatively large number of personnel to be trained, according to CNN’s Barbara Starr and Oren Liebermann, who were first to report the US is close to sending the system to Ukraine.
Zakharova said that many experts questioned the rationality of such a step which would lead to an increased conflict and increase the risk of the US army being dragged into combat.
The system requires training for multiple people and is complex, but could be used to help the country guard againstRussian attacks that have left millions without power.
The Pentagon press secretary was asked Thursday about the Russian warnings for the Patriot system. Those comments would not affect US aid to Ukraine, claims Gen. Pat Ryder.
“I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that brutally attacked its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion … that they would choose to use words like provocative to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder told reporters.
However, he added, “The US is not at war with Russia, and we do not seek conflict. Our focus is to provide security assistance to the country of Ukraine.
In what may be a no less subtle message than calling the Patriot deployments provocative, Russia’s defense ministry shared video of the installation of a “Yars” intercontinental ballistic missile into a silo launcher in the Kaluga region for what Alexei Sokolov, commander of the Kozelsky missile formation, called “combat duty as planned.”
Commander Alexander Khodakovsky of the Russian militia said that Russia would not defeat the NATO alliance in a conventional war.
War on the Grounds. The Case for a New Patriot Missile Battery Between the United States and Russia: How Damned is Russia?
The larger the batteries, the more manpower it takes to properly operate them. The training for Patriot missile batteries normally takes multiple months, a process the United States will now carry out under the pressure of near-daily aerial attacks from Russia.
Zelensky was quoted in an interview with The Economist as denying the idea of a newSilk road between the US and Russia and rejecting the idea of Ukraine trying to get back land seized by Russia.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the French news outlet France 24 this week, before the Patriot missile development, that the alliance still has two main objectives: provide aid to Ukraine and also make sure that NATO forces don’t become directly involved and escalate the war.
Old ammo. A US military official told CNN that Russian forces had to use 40-year old shells as their supplies of new weaponry are quickly running out.
“You load the ammunition and you cross your fingers and hope it’s gonna fire or when it lands that it’s gonna explode,” said the official, speaking to reporters.
In the trenches. CNN reported that trenches and fortifications are being built along the Ukrainian-Bosnia border, where there is growing concern that Russia is getting ready to build troops again. Ripley talks to a sewing machine repairman turned tank driver.
Russia and its backers around the world will present this as a massive and dangerous escalation. That’s nonsense, but it’s highly effective nonsense.
The West has played along with the Kremlin’s pretense that it is not at war, only in a special military operation. In effect, it has protected Russia from the consequences of its own aggression.
Russia’s most effective tool of deterrence remains nuclear threats. Over the last decade or so, there have been talks about using nuclear weapons from Russia and it has died down, but the message of a nuclear response if Russia is cornered or humiliated has already been sent.
That shows how aggressive powers can be around the world. Nuclear weapons allow for genocidal wars of destruction against your neighbors because other nations won’t intervene, it says.
If that’s not the message the US and the West want other aggressor states around the world to receive, then supply of Patriot should be followed by far more direct and assertive means of dissuading Moscow.
Menon believes that his comments could apply to Russia’s earlier waves of cyberattacks, such as the NotPetya weapon released by Russia’s GRUB hackers, which destroyed the digital networks of hundreds of people. “They’re different in the technicalities, but the goal is the same,” he says. Immoralizing and punishing civilians.
More than 13 million people are displaced, about 8 million of them abroad. The war is taking place on Ukrainian soil, with its cities being bombarded to rubble, its factories razed, its people turned destitute. If the war grinds on like this for years, it will be worth asking – are we letting Ukraine get destroyed in order to save it?
War in Ukraine Has Left Russia Isolated and Struturing with More Tumult ahedric: An Overview from the Progress Against Foreign Agents and Non-desirable Organizations
At the time, Putin insisted his forces were embarking on a “special military operation” — a term suggesting a limited campaign that would be over in a matter of weeks.
The war has upended Russian life, rupturing a post-Soviet period in which the country pursued democratic reforms and financial integration with the West.
The military or leadership are not safe from criticism because of the Draconian laws passed in February. Nearly 20,000 people have been detained for demonstrating against the war — 45% of them women — according to a leading independent monitoring group.
Lengthy prison sentences have been meted out to high profile opposition voices on charges of “discrediting” the Russian army by questioning its conduct or strategy.
Organizations and individuals are often added to a list of foreign agents and non-desirable organizations intended to damage their reputation among the Russian public.
Even Russia’s most revered human rights group, 2022’s Nobel Prize co-recipient Memorial, was forced to stop its activities over alleged violations of the foreign agents law.
The state has also vastly expanded Russia’s already restrictive anti-LGBT laws, arguing the war in Ukraine reflects a wider attack on “traditional values.”
For now, repressions remain targeted. Some of the new laws are not enforced. But few doubt the measures are intended to crush wider dissent — should the moment arise.
Leading independent media outlets and a handful of vibrant, online investigative startups were forced to shut down or relocate abroad when confronted with new “fake news” laws that criminalized contradicting the official government line.
Internet users are restricted as well. American social media giants were banned in March. Since the start of the conflict more than 100,000 websites have been blocked.
Technical workarounds such as VPNs and Telegram still offer access to Russians seeking independent sources of information. But state media propaganda now blankets the airwaves favored by older Russians, with angry TV talk shows spreading conspiracies.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/31/1145981036/war-against-ukraine-has-left-russia-isolated-and-struggling-with-more-tumult-ahe
The Russian War after the September 11 Collapse: What Putin Wanted to Do Wasn’t During Putin’s Visit to Ukraine
Thousands of perceived government opponents — many of them political activists, civil society workers and journalists — left in the war’s early days amid concerns of persecution.
Yet Putin’s order to mobilize 300,000 additional troops in September prompted the largest outflow: Hundreds of thousands of Russian men fled to border states including Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Georgia in an attempt to avoid the draft.
Meanwhile, some countries that have absorbed the Russian exodus predict their economies will grow, even as the swelling presence of Russians remains a sensitive issue to former Soviet republics in particular.
In the initial days of the invasion, Russia’s ruble currency cratered and its banking and trading markets looked shaky. McDonald’s and ExxonMobil are two of hundreds of global brands that have suspended or closed their Russian operations.
Ultimately, President Putin is betting that when it comes to sanctions, Europe will blink first — pulling back on its support to Ukraine as Europeans grow angry over soaring energy costs at home. The five months ban on oil exports to countries that adhere to the price cap is expected to make the pain more acute in Europe.
The economic damage has put an end to Putin’s two-decades strong reputation for providing “stability,” a key factor in his support among Russian people who remember the chaotic years after the soviet collapse.
When it comes to Russia’s military campaign, there’s no outward change in the government’s tone. Daily briefings from the Defense Ministry of Russia provide an update on the successes on the ground. Everything is “going according to plan”, says Putin.
The length of the war suggests that Russia underestimated the willingness of Ukrainians to resist.
But its plan to wrest control from Zelensky’s pro-European government has gone badly. A year after Russian tanks rolled into the country, Ukraine is still fighting and has managed to repel Moscow’s advances north of Kyiv and in some eastern and southern parts of the country.
The true number of Russian losses – officially at just under 6,000 men – remains a highly taboo subject at home. Western estimates are much higher than those of us in the US.
Petraeus. The question gets at more than one ironies in the situation. Putin wanted to make Russia great again. However, what he has done is make NATO great again – with two very capable, historically neutral powers (Finland and Sweden) seeking NATO membership; with substantially increased defense spending by NATO members, most notably Germany; with augmentation of NATO forces in the Baltic states and eastern Europe; and with the greatest unity among NATO members since the end of the Cold War.
Longtime allies in Central Asia have criticized Russia’s actions out of concern for their own sovereignty, an affront that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. India and China have purchased discounted Russian oil, but stopped short of full support for the Russian military campaign.
Ukrain is on the edge of a very active phase of war: Russian troops in Ukraine are planning a heavy offensive in the months of the Ukrainian conflict
A state of the nation address, originally scheduled for April, was repeatedly delayed and won’t happen until next year. Putin’s annual “direct line” — a media event in which Putin fields questions from ordinary Russians — was canceled outright.
The annual December “big press conference,” which allows the Russian leader to handle questions from mostly pro-Kremlin media, was tabled until the year’s end.
The US military had assessed it would take as long as until May for the Russian military to regenerate enough power for a sustained offensive, but Russian leaders wanted action sooner. The senior US military official told CNN that the US now believes that the Russians are moving before they are ready due to political pressure from the Kremlin.
America has done this before. The Soviet Union’s position changed in a matter of days during the Cuban Missile Crisis and they accepted the outcome that favored the West. Had “red lines” thinking been in vogue, America might well have accepted an inferior compromise that weakened its security and credibility.
Following Danilov’s comments, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said Wednesday that there a signs Russia is preparing for a renewed offensive in southern Ukraine.
The Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said in an interview on Sky News that the months of the war would be defining.
“We are on the edge of a very active phase of hostilities, February and March will be very active,” Andriy Yusov, representative of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, said on national television.
Military representatives from the two countries will rehearse joint planning of use of troops based on their experience in armed conflicts, according to a ministry statement.
“It’s unlikely Russian forces will be particularly better organized and so unlikely they’ll be particularly more successful, though they do seem willing to send more troops into the meat grinder,” a senior British official told CNN.
“They amassed enough manpower to take one or two small cities in Donbas, but that’s it,” a senior Ukrainian diplomat told CNN. “Underwhelming, compared to the sense of panic they were trying to build in Ukraine.”
Lloyd Austin, the US Defense Secretary, said that the US is not seeing Russia “massing its aircraft” before an aerial operation.
CNN Observer Peter Bergen: The Future of Warfare for Ukraine (with a View from the Causal and Social Media Point of View)
Peter Bergen is a CNN national security analyst, a New America vice president, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. View more opinion on CNN.
Petraeus spoke. I think we should realize that, with certain exceptions, Ukraine is not the future of warfare. In large measure, it is what we would have seen had the Cold War turned hot in the mid-1980s – with largely Cold War weapons systems (albeit with some modernization).
Petraeus, who criticized the Biden administration’s withdrawal of Afghanistan, strikes a different tone on Ukraine. He says that the President and his team have done an outstanding job of leading NATO and the West to counter the Russian invasion, but he would have liked to have seen quicker decisions made on certain weapons systems.
Petraak: It isn’t Russia. Russia has, after all, lost the Battles of Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv; failed to take the rest of Ukraine’s southern coast (not even getting through Mykolaiv, much less to the major port at Odesa).
However, because Russia retreated from a good deal of Ukrainian territory last fall, “the Russian military substantially reduced the amount of territory they have to defend,” he said. They have more force density as a military. They have echelon lines. They have reserves.”
Bergen: What technologies have proven key to Ukrainian successes in this war? The Ukrainians were able to communicate after the Russians partially destroyed the phone system and jammed it. US-supplied HIMARS precision rockets have decimated Russian targets. The Ukrainians have been able to identify Russian soldiers on the battlefield with the aid of a controversial facial recognition technology. TB2 Turkish armed drones have proven devastating to Russian targets and cheap commercial drones have helped the Ukrainians find targets.
We see a war taking place, for the first time in history, in a context with the widespread presence of smart phones, internet access, and social media.
Operational Transformation of the Unarmed: How Russia Fails and How It Gets There, And Why Russia Doesn’t Wanna Shoot
There would be vastly more capable unounsystems in every domain, not just in the air but also at sea, undersea, on the ground, in outer space, and in cyberspace.
I recall an adage back in the Cold War days that stated, “If it can be seen, it can be hit; if it can be hit, it can be killed.” In truth, we didn’t have the surveillance assets, precision munitions and other capabilities needed to truly “operationalize” that adage in those days. In the future, virtually all of the platforms, bases and headquarters will be seen and therefore vulnerable to being hit and destroyed.
Imagining all this underscores, of course, that we must take innumerable actions to transform our forces and systems. We must make sure there are no questions about our capability or willingness to use them, and we must make sure that competition among great powers doesn’t turn into conflict.
NATO’s unity and staying power has confounded skeptics, largely due to Biden’s leadership. But political conditions in Washington and allied nations are not static and could shape Putin’s thinking.
Petraeus: All of the above and more. Poor design, inadequate training, poor control, and communication, as well as a culture that condones war crimes and abuse, are all on the list.
Petraeus: Not at all. Russia is a nuclear power and has enormous military capacity, as well as having enormous energy, mineral and agricultural blessings. It has a population of nearly double that of the next largest European country, Turkey, with more than 80 million.
How Ukrainian War Ends: Where are we going? Where do we stand in the field? What do we have to learn from the past?
The leader of it still embraces many grievances and extreme revanchist views that severely undermine his decision-making.
It’s an observation that was made by Stalin: “Quantity has a quality all its own.” Russia has a far bigger population than Ukraine: Will that make a critical difference to the Ukraine war over the long term?
Nonetheless, it is estimated that as many as 300,000 new recruits and mobilized reservists are being sent to the frontlines, with up to 100,000-150,000 more on the way. Because quantity matters, that is not trivial.
Ukrainians are well versed in what they are fighting for, despite the fact that many Russian soldiers are from ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation.
Petraeus: All of those technologies have proven very important, and the Ukrainians have demonstrated enormous skill in adapting various technologies and commercial applications to enable intelligence gathering, targeting and other military tasks.
The Ukrainians have shown exceptional abilities to use McGyver solutions for a wide range of problems, including the conversion of Western missiles for use on fighter aircraft, as well as repairing battle damaged armored vehicles left on the battlefield by the Russians.
I’ve felt the need to provide various capabilities when I have felt that we should have. sooner than we have.
Ukranian will have to transition from eastern bloc aircraft to western ones eventually. They don’t have any more MiGs to give them, and they have more pilots than aircraft at this point.
We might as well start the process of transition because it will take a number of months to train pilots and maintenance personnel. I think that the Administration has done a great job and have proven to be an important part of the situation in other areas of the world.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/opinions/petraeus-how-ukraine-war-ends-bergen-ctpr/index.html
How did Russia invade Taiwan over a 100 mile Boundary of Water? Comments on “How Ukraine War Ends Bergen” by A.I. Petraeus
The force that Putin sends into the toughest battles is the quasi-privateWagner Group. Any thoughts on using mercenaries, many of whom are convicts, as a tactic?
Petraeus: What Russia has done with what are, in essence, mercenaries, as you note, is somewhat innovative – but also essentially inhumane, as it entails throwing soldiers (many of them former convicts) into battle as cannon fodder, and with little, if any, concern for their survival.
These are not practices or tactics thatfoster growth of well-trained, disciplined, capable, and cohesive units that have trust in their leaders and soldiers on the left and right.
If the Chinese invaded Taiwan over a 100 mile body of water then what lessons would they learn from Ukrainians? The Chinese might think differently about the question since the Moskva was the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea navy.
And especially if the target of such an operation has a population willing to fight fiercely for its survival and be supported by major powers – not just militarily but with substantial economic, financial, and personal sanctions and export controls.
Petraeus is also known as the man with the golden tooth I believe it is. This is the first war in which social media has become so common that it is also widely used. There is an incredible amount of information that can be found through so-called open sources.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/opinions/petraeus-how-ukraine-war-ends-bergen-ctpr/index.html
How Do Ukranian and NATO Warfights End? Petraeus, Bergen, Biden, Smith, and the Rest of the Cold War
It does not seem to be an innovative new plan, given the limitations of the professional capabilities of the Russian forces and their demonstrated inability to generate combined arms effect.
Bergen: In 2003, at the beginning of the Iraq War, you famously asked a rhetorical question: “Tell me how this ends?” How does the war in Ukranian end?
And in an opinion article by CNN’s Peter Bergen, retired US General and former CIA Chief David Petraeus said the conflict would end in a “negotiated resolution” when Putin realizes the war is unsustainable on the battlefield and on the home front.
Also when the United States and G7 countries are able to come up with a plan that would help rebuildUkraine, and if NATO membership is not granted, a US-led security guarantee.
The United States and Western nations are getting ready for a show of strength designed to establish once and for all that NATO is in the conflict for the long haul and until Moscow is defeated.
Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Russia had lost strategically and tactically. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Wednesday that “Putin must realize that he cannot win” as he explained the rationale for rushing arms and ammunition to Ukrainian forces. And Julianne Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, told CNN’s Becky Anderson that Washington was doing all it could to “continue to apply pressure on Moscow to affect (Putin’s) strategic calculus.”
The Western rhetorical and diplomatic offensive will ratchet up further as Vice President Kamala Harris heads to the Munich Security Conference this week. President Joe Biden will meanwhile visit Poland and a frontline NATO and ex-Warsaw pact state next week, bolstering his legacy of offering the most effective leadership of the Western alliance since the end of the Cold War.
US-China relations in Ukraine after the U.S. involvement in the February 11 attack on Ypresin-Kuzmin-Putin
In the US House for instance, some members of the new Republican majority are skittish. Gaetz demanded an end to aid to Ukraine and for the US to demand peace immediately in exchange for it. The House and the Senate have bipartisan support for saving Ukraine. But it’s not certain Biden can guarantee massive multi-billion dollar aid packages for Ukraine in perpetuity. If Trump is elected, the US aid might be in serious doubt.
The outside world knows Putin is not contemplating defeat or an exit from the war because of the complete lack of any diplomatic framework for ceasefire talks.
A leading expert on Russia and Putin, who worked in the White House, said at a Senate armed services committee hearing on Wednesday that there were few signs that Putin’s determination is waning.
The prospect of China leaning on Putin for an end to the war was remote even before the lurch in US-China relations caused by the flight of a Chinese spy balloon across the US this month.
Even if Beijing was embarrassed by Putin’s performance in Ukraine after declaring a no limits partnership, it might have an advantage over the US as it escalates its challenge to American power in Asia.
Sherman said at an event at the Brookings Institution that he was concerned about a tighter relationship between China and Russia due to the fact that they are at the same time locked in a fight with each other.
As long as it takes, the administration is saying the meaning of the State of the Union pledge to support Ukraine by President Biden. It quotes an administration official saying, “‘As long as it takes’ pertains to the amount of conflict,” but “it doesn’t pertain to the amount of assistance.”
This is not a good idea. The Ukrainian military’s success so far has made pushing the military to mount a premature offensive all the more dangerous. For example, it will take Ukraine time to receive advanced Western tanks. And deploying those tanks before Ukrainian soldiers are fully trained and before Ukraine has a maintenance infrastructure in place could result in unacceptable losses and squandered resources.
The American public has an extraordinary high stakes in the outcome of a war fought so many thousands of miles from our shores.
The following night, Ukrainian special forces, supported by accurate artillery, penetrated the base, killed dozens of Russian paratroopers and disabled the runway. The first phase of the Russian operation concept was beginning to fall apart.
Perhaps one of the most impressive examples of Ukrainian agility came on the first day of the invasion, when a large Russian helicopter assault force seized an airfield on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv, threatening to turn it into a decisive bridge for the invading force to surge further reinforcements.
Zelensky rejected an offer from the United States to leave the country, and also resisted a retort from a small group of Snake Island soldiers, in a gesture that became a national one.
But on this first anniversary of the Russian invasion Ukraine has more pressing needs than main battle tanks. During a two week tour of frontline positions, one refrain was repeated frequently: “We need shells.”
One lesson the Russians have learned is to place logistics hubs beyond the reach of strikes, so the timing of GLSDB deliveries and of longer-range systems promised by the UK to Ukraine is all-important – to defeat mass with precision.
The Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies expects “the first GLSDBs won’t arrive until this fall, likely missing widely expected Russian and Ukrainian offensives that will determine the war’s future trajectory.”
Ukrainian officials are annoyed by the never category, which includes F-16 fighter jets and Army Tactical missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers.
“It’s likely more aspirational than realistic,” said a senior US military official last week, with Russian forces moving before they are ready, due to political pressure from the Kremlin.
The Russians have only been able to lay waste to the things in front of them because there is nothing left to defend. It has been seen in many areas of Mariupol.
But Ukraine will need time to assimilate tanks, fighting vehicles and other hardware to break through Russian lines, which are deeper and denser than they were a few months ago.
It is possible that after a burst of anger this spring, the conflict will become violent, with little ground changing hands, and high casualties.
PRESIDENT OF THE VLAMITZER COMMISSION ABOVE NEUCLEAR INVARIANCE PARTICLE CONFERENCE
“Ukraine is going to decide what victory is gonna look like,” Secretary Austin said. “So I don’t want to speak for President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy or the Ukrainian people.”
We’re gonna focus on what’s in front of us right now and put [Ukraine] in the best possible position to continue to be successful. I think that will lead to us going toUkraine, if the fighting continues or if they decide to go to the negotiating table.
I don’t want to speculate at this point. I think, you know, my goal is to provide the capabilities required to achieve their objectives. The chairman and I are going to stay focused on that.
Is there a way to stop the fighting? Yes. The first anniversary of the Ukrainian conflict is a possibility, and the future is inevitable
Is there a way to stop the fighting? Yes, on paper. It’s possible to imagine a cease-fire that returns all lands captured since February 2022 to Ukraine. Those taken earlier, like Crimea in 2014, would be subject to international arbitration, including local referendums that would be conducted by international groups, not the Russian government. NATO would not apply to disputed territories, but Ukraine would still get security guarantees. That tradeoff – to put it simply, Crimea and parts of the Donbas for de facto NATO and EU membership – is one that could be sold to Ukrainians because they would achieve their long-cherished goal of becoming part of the West. It could be acceptable to Russia because it could claim to have protected some Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine.
I don’t know what countries will view this, after-offensive. I believe that being successful on a battlefield will put us in the best possible stance to continue operations, and also, if there is some sort of negotiation in the future, Ukraine will have a strong hand and at the negotiating table.
Zelensky told Christiane Amanpour that victory will be inevitable at the press conference in the capital city. I am certain there will be victory.”
The president of the U.S. has repeatedly said that he does not want to negotiate a peacedeal that would see his country lose it’s territory. He spoke on Friday and said he wouldn’t negotiation with Putin, even though he was willing to talk to him before the war started.
Meanwhile in Russia, former Russian President and Deputy Chair of Russia’s Security Council of the Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that that Russia’s aim was to “push the borders of threats to our country as far as possible, even if these are the borders of Poland.”
Zelensky used the first anniversary of the war to rally troops and renew calls for international assistance for his country. He handed out awards to soldiers and visited wounded service members before holding the rare press conference.
The leader of the Ukrainians addressed members of the military on Friday. They had been told that they would decide the future of the country.
Ukraine’s international allies showed their solidarity on Friday, with landmarks around the world lit up in colors of the Ukrainian flag, and new weapons and funding announcements.
The United States announced a $2 billion dollar security package to Ukraine, which includes contracts for missiles, 155-millimeter weapons, drones, and mine-clearing equipment.
Kyiv War Anniversary intl-cmd: What do we have to do to protect ourselves from the enemy?
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on the international community not to let Putin’s crimes “become our new normal,” at the United Nations Security Council.
Germany said it would send a further four Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, increasing its original commitment from 14 tanks to 18. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also pledged to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
The Prime Minister of Japan stated that he would be going to a meeting with G7 leaders and Zelensky to talk about new sanctions against Russia.
While air-raid sirens are a daily fixture in Kyiv, there hasn’t been a major attack on the city in a few weeks, which means that whenever the alarms are activated, people are left gauging the level of risk.
Two students from her school lost their lives fighting in the war and the 16-year old student visited the monastery to remember them.
It was a very cold morning in Kyiv, but Pahitsky said she felt it was her duty to pay her respects to the fallen heroes.
There are photographs on the main street. It’s a great honor. They died as heroes. So it’s very important for us. And it would have been for them,” she said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/europe/kyiv-war-anniversary-intl-cmd/index.html
Atamas’s legacy in the armed forces of Ukraine: launching offensives against Russia and confronting the Kremlin at the end of the war
Olexander Atamas was an IT worker before the war and he now works for the Naval Force of the armed forces of Ukraine.
The man told CNN he felt confident in his abilities and he did not feel a fear. I was stressed and scared one year ago. But currently there is no fear at all.”
The way they did at the beginning of the war isn’t what they look like today. Both lost a lot of money. Both have lost a lot of their best people and best equipment,” said Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the Center for Naval Analyses.
The Russians did not deploy enough troops to capture and hold large parts of Ukraine, according to an analyst.
“If they didn’t have enough troops at the beginning, they may not have enough equipment to execute a successful campaign now, but they still have plenty of equipment,” he said.
It burned through massive amounts of explosives at an unsustainable rate. Second, Russia lost half its tanks in the past year, according to a recent U.S. Defense Department estimate.
“I think it’s going to be very difficult for the Ukrainians to make quick progress,” he said. “Unless the Russian line just collapses, I think it’s going to be difficult to see the type of lightning offensives that we saw last year.”
“Neither side, frankly, has demonstrated a great proficiency at combined arms. Neither side has air superiority, which is really important if you’re going to take these fortified positions,” Alperovitch said.
Both sides are widely expected to launch offensives. In fact, a Russian one appears to be in the east, and Russian forces have already suffered a huge defeat around the town of the same name.
U.S. and European aid has been much stronger than many anticipated. Just last month, Western countries pledged the biggest military assistance package yet, including, for the first time, tanks.
“I do think at some point, Western support will start fraying, especially as the political winds change in the U.S.,” Ioffe said, pointing to a group of Republicans in the U.S. House who are questioning U.S. aid.
“You can see these reassertions of the idea of ‘America First’, ‘Why are we in this fight?’ Why are we sending a blank check to Ukraine? She said, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
The main issue is not the desire to support the Ukrainians on the Western side. He said that it’s the capacity to do so. The production capacity of the collective West is not able to compete with the rate at which the Ukrainians are firing their weapons.
The Rise of Russia During the First World War and its Implications for the United States and the Rest of the World: CNN’s Fareed Zakaria
On Sunday at 10 a.m. and at 1 p.m., Fareed Zakaria hosts Fareed ZakariaGPS, which is on CNN. The views expressed here are his own. CNN has more opinion.
Russia has been a poor performer in the war, but it is doing better at holding territory. Russia has also been able to stabilize its economy, which the IMF projects will do better this year than the UK’s or Germany’s. Russia is trading freely with such economic behemoths as China, and India, as well as neighbors like Turkey and Iran. Because of these countries and many more, outside of the advanced technology sector, it has access to all the goods and capital it lost through the Western boycott. Russia is able to swim in the waters without restriction due to a huge world economy that doesn’t include the West. The long-term costs of the war and the effects of the sanctions are real but slow. Look at the policies of North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, they all have similar policies.