Analysis: what happens if Russia invades? Russia

While Ukrainians may be unable to defeat a large-scale invasion, they could inflict high casualties, a sensitive issue in Russia. Occupying forces might be stretched thin and vulnerable to stay-behind insurgents. The United States is weighing whether to send Ukraine lightweight Stingers or other air defense systems and Iron Dome defenses against short-range missiles. The United States might provide Mi-17 helicopters, which were being readied for Afghanistan.

• Further sanctions, energy market disruptions and cyberwarfare could reach Americans seemingly far removed from the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
• It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.
• But barring Putin’s sudden departure - which would trigger a political transformation in Moscow - Russia will still present a dangerous threat to security in Europe.
• Third, he wants to show that popular revolutions such as the one that took place in Kyiv in 2014 do not succeed in the long run.
• The top commander of Canada's military said last year that Canadian forces must avoid "crossing the line from deterrence into escalation."

Labour's Keir Starmer and many Conservative backbenchers have called for further military options to be explored. So far the UK government has sent troops (now withdrawn) to train the Ukrainian army, and supplied them with defensive weapons. Turkey had some success last summer with the UN in mediating a deal on resuming grain exports through the Black Sea but has had no success since.  https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-is-china-saying-about-ukraine.html  is looking for a role in securing a political settlement, but its position is probably too close to Russia to be considered an honest broker. Kyiv believes Russia is also seeking to depose the pro-European government in Moldova, where Russian troops are based in the breakaway region of Transnistria bordering Ukraine.

What happens if Russia invades Ukraine?

Fertilizer is produced in major quantities in both Ukraine and Russia. Disruptions to those exports would mostly affect agriculture in Europe, but food prices around the world could rise as a result. While the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 – though effectively torn to shreds by Russia – was not formally revoked at the Summit, any self-restrictions which NATO took on as part of the agreement should now be considered null and void. Crucially, Allies have finally attributed responsibility where it lies, calling Russia “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security” in their new Strategic Concept. Ottawa says Canadian troops have helped to train 12,500 Ukrainian soldiers since 2015. While Canada has been one of the most consistent and vocal supporters of Ukraine's bid to join NATO, it probably couldn't influence Russia's actions on its own.

Compared to Cold War practice, today, Kremlin propagandists and officials engage in highly irresponsible rhetoric advocating for the use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal against Ukraine, and possibly even against NATO states. This is backed by exercises (at least two this year) openly testing the Russian military’s ability to fire nuclear warheads at Western targets and protect Russia from possible counter-strikes. The Russian president has even shown his willingness to bring Belarus into the nuclear equation. Such brinkmanship has contributed to the return of nuclear arms into the power competition on a global stage. He uses Russia's internal security forces to suppress that opposition. But this turns sour and enough members of Russia's military, political and economic elite turn against him.

Ukraine-Russia war live: Russia 'captures Ukrainian village'

“Active diplomacy, strong political messages, tough economic sanctions and strengthening Ukraine can still force Moscow to abandon aggressive plans,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. He denied accusations by Russia that Ukraine had engaged in military actions against its own citizens. About 10 civilians are believed  to have been killed, including six in an air strike in Brovary near the capital Kyiv. A man was also killed in shelling outside the major eastern city of Kharkiv.

In response, Ukraine's foreign minister accused Russia of starting a full-scale war. He has urged the United Nations to "do everything possible" to stop the aggression going any further. Russia's defence ministry has denied attacking Ukrainian cities - saying it was targeting military infrastructure, air defence and air forces with "high-precision weapons". Ukrainian defenders have geographical scale and a military hardened by seven years of fighting in eastern Ukraine.

How a Russian invasion of Ukraine could spill over into Europe

Further east in Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, the BBC's Eastern European Correspondent Sarah Rainsford said people did not expect such a full-on assault. Ukraine has declared martial law - which means the military takes control temporarily. It has cut diplomatic ties with Russia, offered weapons to anyone who wants them and declared an overnight curfew for Kyiv. Convoys have also entered the eastern  Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, and moved into the Kherson region from Crimea - a territory that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Tanks and troops have poured into Ukraine at points along its eastern, southern and northern borders, Ukraine says. BBC correspondents heard loud bangs in the capital Kyiv, as well as Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

• President Volodomyr Zelensky has admitted his country's spring offensive has not been the success he hoped.
• Your parents are likely to pay even more for gas and electricity because of this crisis.
• While Russia's Vladimir Putin insisted for months that there were no plans to invade Ukraine, it's the question everyone is asking as the president declared a "special military operation" in the Donbas region of the country.
• He urged Ukrainian soldiers in the combat zone to lay down their weapons and go home, but said clashes were inevitable and "only a question of time".
• The decision marks the end of the Minsk peace deal, a troubled road map out of the conflict that would have left the territories in Ukraine.

President Putin could seek to regain more parts of Russia's former empire by sending troops into ex-Soviet republics like Moldova and Georgia, that are not part of Nato. Mr Putin could declare Western arms supplies to Ukrainian forces are an act of aggression that warrant retaliation. He could threaten to send troops into the Baltic states - which are members of Nato - such as Lithuania, to establish a land corridor with the Russian coastal exclave of Kaliningrad. Maybe Russian forces get bogged down, hampered by low morale, poor logistics and inept leadership. Maybe it takes longer for Russian forces to secure cities like Kyiv whose defenders fight from street to street.

• With just three UK-provided Storm Shadow cruise missiles, they have forced the commander of the Black Sea Fleet to withdraw a third of his fleet from Sevastopol.
• By rolling into separatist-controlled areas in an explicit way, Russia could keep tensions with Kyiv high without having to fire a shot, Breedlove and some experts said.
• Russia is bound to be a weaker, less influential actor for the foreseeable future.
• The course of the conflict in 2023 marked the fact that industrial-age warfare had returned too.
• Russia's warnings to the West against arming Ukraine have gone unheeded, with Western assurances of support "for as long as it takes" and pledges that Nato will never be divided.

Allies should thus consider, as a matter of urgency, persuasive signalling to Russia about possible conventional military responses (e.g. a disabling of Russian military targets in the Black Sea) that would come as a result of such acts. Only the certainty of retaliation can dissuade the Kremlin from seriously contemplating such an option. A more ruthless form of deterrence, by denial rather than punishment, based on a beefed-up forward defence seems the only appropriate response.

• And even though the U.S. imports relatively little oil from Russia, oil prices are set by the global market, meaning local prices could rise anyway.
• NATO and Ukraine say Russia has launched cross-border artillery attacks, armed the separatists and moved weapons and personnel into the area.
• The United States might provide Mi-17 helicopters, which were being readied for Afghanistan.
• Crucially, Allies have finally attributed responsibility where it lies, calling Russia “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security” in their new Strategic Concept.
• But concrete pledges of national contributions, like those announced by US President Biden on 29 June, must follow quickly from all Allies.

The territories have been armed, financed and politically controlled by Russia since 2014. But until this week, Russia still recognised them as part of Ukraine. The US and UK have not ruled out arming resistance fighters, as during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. British ministers predict a long-running “quagmire”, with Russia suffering significant casualties.

Second, he thinks that a western-leaning Ukraine is dangerous for Russia. He has called the possibility of Nato membership for Ukraine a “red line” for the Kremlin. Third, he wants to show that popular revolutions such as the one that took place in Kyiv in 2014 do not succeed in the long run. Blinken has warned Russia repeatedly there will be "massive consequences" if it does attack Ukraine, without going into much detail.