Experts predict what happens next in Ukraine war and explain why Putin must claim a victory soon

Russia's aggression towards Ukraine has already driven the price of oil close to $100 per barrel – a level that, given the current strength of demand for oil and gas, is likely to be hit in coming days. "Revenge" could take the form of cyber attacks - something the National Cyber Security Centre has already warned about. Often hard to attribute, these could target banks, businesses, individuals and even critical national infrastructure. Hungary previously said it would block further financial aid to Ukraine, but this morning suggested it was ready to compromise after  the EU reportedly drew up plans to hit Budapest's economy. If the US abandons the military alliance, it will fall to European countries to ensure a Ukrainian victory, Mr OBrien says. 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.

• The danger, however, with sanctions is they push Moscow further away from the West and towards the East, meaning Mr Putin may develop yet closer relations with Beijing.
• We visited schools where air raid sirens and sheltering in underground classrooms are now a part of children's everyday lives.
• Since 2014, Russian-backed separatists and Ukraine's armed forces have been fighting a war in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in which more than 14,000 people have died.
• They say that Ukraine - with Western support - has destroyed nearly 90% of the Russian army that invaded in February 2022, according to US intelligence sources.

However, power lines are often damaged during air strikes and electricity blackouts are common. He also tried to reassure the British public by promising to do "everything to keep our country safe" and work with allies "for however long it takes" to restore Ukraine's independence. President Putin recognises the independence of the two Russian-backed separatists areas in eastern Ukraine and says troops will be sent to support them. 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. Some in Kyiv are hunkering down in the city's metro stations and air raid shelters, while others are trying to escape.

What has been the impact of the Ukraine war on the rest of the world?

For now, at least, Ukraine's allies are standing firmly beside it, saying they will support it "whatever it takes" while Russia too is "nowhere near giving up," Barrons said. "Unfortunately, almost nine hours of talks have ended without any significant results," Russian deputy chief of staff Dmitry Kozak said.  https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-ukraine-is-important.html  remained unclear when and how the next attempt at a breakthrough would be made. The US picked up intelligence that Russia was looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a US official familiar with the findings.

• Russia's aggression towards Ukraine has already driven the price of oil close to $100 per barrel – a level that, given the current strength of demand for oil and gas, is likely to be hit in coming days.
• At the start of the invasion, Putin blamed NATO's expansion into eastern Europe for forcing his hand, echoing a criticism he has made for years.
• This is a question lots of you put forward and has been tackled by our security and defence editor Deborah Haynes here...
• Belarus is already essentially a Russian puppet state, making a military invasion of it almost pointless, whereas Ukraine has increasingly aligned itself with the West in recent years.
• That, though, is partly because Ukraine had already learnt from previous Russian cyberattacks over the past decade.

A victorious Russian army at the end of the Ukraine war, the ISW says, would be combat experienced and considerably  larger than its pre-2022 forces. Republicans in Washington have been holding up new funds for Kyiv over demands for border control, leading to concerns over the reliability of American support. Here’s where Ukraine has mounted multiple attacks this week in the apparent beginning of its long-planned counteroffensive. For his part, Trump has said that he'd be able to resolve the Ukraine war "in one day" if he was reelected, saying he'd convince the leaders of Ukraine and Russia to make a deal. It didn't, and the prospect of a breakthrough in 2024 is also unlikely, military experts and defense analysts told CNBC. When the war started, many countries offered to help people fleeing Ukraine.

Accusations abound after deadly Russian plane crash

The deliveries have been cited as enabling military strikes against Ukraine in December and January that “killed dozens of people and injured hundreds more”. “Billions of people in dozens of countries will go to the polls and exercise the right to make their voices heard. In 2024, wherever we are in the world, we can’t afford to have our choices made for us. In a Guardian Long Read, Olesya Khromeychuk writes about the battle to keep Ukraine in the hearts and minds of the international community.

• President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile.
• A large diversion of citizens to military duty would leave gaps in the workforce to be filled, be it guarding food warehouses or building trenches and bomb shelters.
• The course of the conflict in 2023 marked the fact that industrial-age warfare had returned too.
• Such an invasion would force Russia to move into areas that are bitterly hostile toward it.

Gen Sir Richard Barrons, the former head of the British Joint Forces Command, told the committee that he doubted there were “sufficient munitions to sustain a high-intensity conflict for more than about a week”. Yet the Army is already looking at how it might create a citizens' army. One Whitehall source told the Times that the training of Ukrainian civilians on UK soil could act as a rehearsal for rapid Army expansion. Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough - so the Army should be designed to expand rapidly "to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon, and train and equip the citizen army that must follow".

Putin's intent

Andrew Roth revealed exclusively this week that the UK has provided satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia to UN experts as part of an attempt to trigger an official investigation into arms deals in violation of international sanctions. 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. The news from the battlefield, the diplomatic noises off, the emotion of the grieving and displaced; all of this can be overwhelming. So let us step back for a moment and consider how the conflict in Ukraine might play out.

One thing Biden’s team has internalized — perhaps in response to the failures of the US response in 2014 — is that it needed European allies to check Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The Biden administration has put a huge emphasis on working with NATO, the European Union, and individual European partners to counter Putin. They know it, they engage with us about it all the time, we have an alliance in which we’re at the epicenter,” said Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress. Late last year, the White House started intensifying its diplomatic efforts with Russia.

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Compared with this time last year, Vladimir Putin is stronger, politically more than militarily. President Volodomyr Zelensky has admitted his country's spring offensive has not been the success he hoped. “Covid showed our ugly side, with people getting upset when all they were being asked to do was sit on the sofa at home,” said the former TA soldier.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) is a military alliance of countries which includes the US and the UK. Mr Zelensky has requested more help from European countries and said they still need more weapons to help them fight the war. Despite towns and cities suffering heavy shelling, Ukraine has been successful in slowing Russia's troops down considerably and have even taken back control over the previously captured city of Kherson.