The consequences of Russias invasion of Ukraine for international security NATO and beyond

Hospitals, infrastructure, cultural treasures, private homes and industrial centres are either destroyed or pillaged, with stolen goods being sent to Russia in an organised manner. There is no U.S. or NATO consensus to insert their own combat forces into Ukraine. One reason may be fear that direct combat could lead to a wider European war, perhaps even risking a Russian nuclear threat. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that in 2014 “we were ready” to put nuclear weapons on alert. In 2018, he showed a boastful video simulating a nuclear-armed missile attacking Florida. The United States and its allies may further reinforce NATO's eastern flank with major ground and air units.

• And he added that any intervention from outside powers to resist the Russian attack would be met with an "instant" and devastating response.
• Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified and barbaric invasion of Ukraine is not only a manifestation of a huge security danger that has shattered peace in Europe.
• “It is high time to establish a cease-fire and return to the path of dialogue and negotiations to save the people in Ukraine and beyond from the scourge of war,” he said.
• As current levels are eminently insufficient, procurement practices and defence industry production capacity must be adapted, and stocks augmented quickly.
• Russia has captured the town of Soledar this year and has hopes of seizing the eastern city of Bakhmut on the road to key cities to the west, and of recapturing territory it lost last autumn.
• "And I think Russia's well aware of many of the things that we would do if they put us in a position where we have to do them."

But Russians losses have been especially heavy in recent weeks, with several hundred deaths every day on the battlefields of the east.  https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-is-russia-invading-ukraine-newsround.html  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. While cities such as Mariupol were flattened, details of war crimes have emerged against civilians in Bucha, near Kyiv, and have led to an independent report that accused Russia itself of state-orchestrated incitement to genocide. The biggest success President Putin can lay claim to is establishing a land bridge from Russia's border to Crimea, annexed illegally in 2014, so it is no longer reliant on its bridge over the Kerch Strait.

What gains has Russia made?

If fighting is prolonged and civilian casualties mount, pressure on the west to intervene will grow rapidly. More sanctions are expected to follow in response to what Biden said is a "needless act of aggression against Ukraine and global peace and security." The collective West (and specifically NATO) can count on its likely ability to contain an aggressive Russia, at least in the long run. Madrid Summit decisions have supplied key elements of the required strategy.

• They include potentially crippling curbs on Russian banks, corporations, exports, loans and technology transfers, diplomatic isolation and the targeting of Putin’s personal wealth and that of his oligarch cronies.
• President Putin, 70, has sought to distance himself from military failures, but his authority, at least outside Russia, has been shredded and he makes few trips beyond its borders.
• It would be wrong to say that the front lines in Ukraine are stalemated, but both sides are capable of fighting each other to a standstill as they each try to take strategic initiatives.
• Putin has turned Russia into an international pariah and the country will not recover its reputation for a long time.
• While Covid was a useful exercise in Armageddon planning, 21st-century Britain is arguably less ready for actual warfare than it was even 30 years ago.

Sanctions are starting to bite and will set the Russian economy - which is not able to produce a huge range of goods without foreign technology or parts – back for decades. Overall, unemployment is set to rise while GDP is unlikely to grow. What is published in NATO Review does not constitute the official position or policy of NATO or member governments.NATO Review seeks to inform and promote debate on security issues. 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.

What does Ukraine want?

The  US defence aid package is held hostage by what President Biden rightly labelled "petty politics" in Washington. And the future of the EU's economic aid is seemingly dependent on Hungary's incongruous stance. President Biden's virtual meeting with President Putin earlier this week was a start and will be followed up by more talks with other Nato members. "Added to that are the recent border crisis involving thousands of migrants in Belarus, as well as Russia's backing of separatists in the Caucasus and elsewhere," he said. But the official noted there had been a combination of sharp bellicose rhetoric from Moscow, accusations of being provoked by Ukraine and Nato, a lack of transparency, and a worrying track record, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Such a move is well within Russia's naval capabilities, and it could bring Ukraine's economy to its knees, the country's former defense minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk warned in June. If Russian troops moved fast enough to outflank Ukraine's ground forces, they could capture prisoners and seize weapons and equipment, said Scott Boston, a defense analyst with the Rand Corp. think tank. Moscow's economy would "gradually recover as sanctions inevitably erode" and its military would rebuild its coherence "drawing on a wealth of hard-won experience fighting mechanized warfare".

The war that erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014 has already left 14,000 dead and an estimated 1.4 million displaced. If Russia did decide to invade Ukraine, the senior Western intelligence official said large numbers of people would be displaced. In 2014, however, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych rejected an agreement with the European Union. The move led to mass protests through the country and he left office in that same year.

• With or without a nuclear threat dimension, Russia’s neighbours already have valid reasons to fear the Russian predator.
• A full-on assault of Ukraine, with Russian forces attacking from the north, east and south, would aim to encircle the most potent arm of the Ukrainian military in the east, as well as make a move on the capital.
• Russia has also purposefully raised the level of risk for the possible use of nuclear weapons, the main goal primarily being to discourage Western Allies from offering military support to Ukraine and to instil fear in decision-makers.
• US officials believe the Kremlin has drafted a list of public figures earmarked for arrest or assassination.
• He uses Russia's internal security forces to suppress that opposition.

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. Ukraine will do all it can to keep pressure on the Russians there to make it untenable for the Russian navy in Sevastopol, the handful of air force bases there and their logistics base at  Dzankoy. 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 military course of this war in 2024 will be determined in Moscow, Kyiv, Washington, Brussels, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang more than in Avdiivka, Tokmak, Kramatorsk or any of the devastated battlefields along the frontlines.

• Industrial-age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority.
• Military analysts believe the Russian invaders would seek to encircle Ukraine's most battle-hardened forces in the east, bomb their main command posts in and around the capital and disrupt supply lines.
• Not the full-scale war that has bombed civilians across Ukraine and left more than 13 million either as refugees abroad or displaced inside their own country.
• What are some of the possible scenarios that politicians and military planners are examining?
• There have also been reports of troops landing by sea at the Black Sea port cities of Mariupol and Odesa in the south.

To understand the situation though, it’s important to go back a few years. Originally Ukraine was part of the Russian empire (USSR) but it won independence when the empire dissolved in 1991. The country attempted to remove its associations with Russia and create a relationship with countries in the West. Russia recently re-established their desire to keep Ukraine out of NATO in a list of security demands, sent to the US in December 2021. Among others, the demands included a stop to any NATO drills in the vicinity of Russia’s border. The Covid lockdown, which saw fights breaking out in queues at supermarkets and garages, was a glimpse of how trouble can spark during times of nationwide panic.

Superior US Himars missiles helped turn the course of the war and German Leopard 2 tanks are promised, even if Western fighter jets are not. A succession of Western leaders, including President Joe Biden, have made the complex journey to Kyiv. Beyond seizing a territorial corridor to Crimea, Russia's bloody, unprovoked war has been a disaster for itself and the country it was unleashed on. So far, it has achieved little more than exposing the brutality and inadequacy of the Russian military. A month into the invasion and his campaign goals were dramatically scaled back after a retreat from Kyiv and Chernihiv. The main goal became the "liberation of Donbas" - broadly referring to Ukraine's two industrial regions in the east of Luhansk and Donetsk.

• It would also try to "decapitate" the political leadership - something that Russia would most likely hope to achieve before it looked to de-escalate and put in place a more pro-Russian administration.
• Among them are Russia's desire to have "legally binding guarantees" that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO, the removal of NATO arms from Eastern Europe, a ban on intermediate-range missiles in Europe and autonomy for eastern Ukraine.
• They feel that, if not stopped in and by Ukraine, Putin may entertain aggression against other territories.
• However, sources have confirmed that no agreements were made and negotiations are set to continue at a later date.
• That was before the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, so the promise made to then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev referred merely to East Germany in the context of a reunified Germany.