Ukraine conflict: What we know about the invasion

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. "Has Putin decided to initiate a conflict? The jury is still out," he said. Meanwhile, other Western defence sources have expressed concern about an increase in signals intelligence and "chatter" being monitored which could signal Russia's preparedness to invade.

• The territories have been armed, financed and politically controlled by Russia since 2014.
• Evident atrocities fitting the criteria of war crimes are being perpetrated and accompanied by genocidal talk on Russian state TV.
• Nato countries and allies are watching Russia's every move, warning that their defensive military alliance will do everything to defend "every inch" of their territory.
• Western intelligence estimates that Russia already has up to 100,000 troops positioned near to the border with Ukraine, along with tanks and artillery.

Putin claimed in his end-of year news conference that 617,000 troops were currently active in Ukraine. A year ago, Ukraine's international military support was solid with NATO pledging to support Kyiv for "as  long as it takes" as it defended itself against Russia's invasion launched in February 2022. 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.

Ukraine is fighting back

This war is often called President Putin's war - it's widely believed he is the one driving it and no one is clear how far he is able and willing to go to try to control a neighbour he says shouldn't exist as a country. Special funding assistance will be required for long-term training and the modernisation of Ukrainian forces, de facto bringing them to NATO standards. This is necessary, as Ukrainian weapon stocks composed of Soviet-standards equipment are depleted, and availability of such arms outside Ukraine is limited too.

Russia now appears to be threatening military action as a way to break that stalemate. As the Russian military continues to squeeze Ukraine from three directions, Canada and its NATO allies are trying to de-escalate an increasingly volatile situation. Russia was unnerved when an uprising in 2014 replaced Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president with an unequivocally Western-facing government.

Ukraine conflict: What we know about the invasion

This militarization could cause a dramatic increase in defense spending by both the United States and NATO over the next decade. 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. BBC Russian has identified more than 15,000 Russian soldiers killed in the first year of war and suggests the most conservative estimate would be at least double that, with more than 100,000 others wounded or missing. 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.

Ukraine will probably try to exploit the success it has had in re-establishing its control over the western Black Sea and its vital trade corridor to the Bosphorus. According to  https://euronewstop.co.uk/who-is-allies-with-ukraine.html , Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said representatives were now returning to their respective capitals for further consultation. Russia additionally shared that talks between two will then continue "in the next few days".

International response – good and not so good news

While the official said it was hard to say these were all strategically related, it showed that there was an issue on Eastern Europe's eastern flank. "A victorious Ukraine would not be a permanent ward of the West," it says, arguing that restored to its 1991 borders its economy is big enough to support its own military. 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". 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. The Institute for the Study of War thinktank says the costs of allowing Russia to win in Ukraine are "higher than most people imagine", as US resolve - particularly among Republicans - possibly wavers over providing more military aid to Kyiv.

As the top UK general recently observed, it is dangerous to assume that the war on Ukraine is a limited conflict. This could be “our 1937 moment“, and everything possible must be done in order to stop territorial expansion by force, thereby averting a war similar to the one that ravaged Europe 80 years ago. Weather conditions are deteriorating in Ukraine, with mud, freezing rain, snow and ice making offensive and reconnaissance operations challenging. Intense fighting continues nonetheless, and particularly around Bakhmut and Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces are conducting offensive operations and have made some recent, confirmed advances.

• Constanze Stelzenmüller, a security policy expert at the Brookings Institute, said Ukraine's military has improved greatly since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
• Meanwhile, Moscow has claimed its forces have taken control of the village of Tabaivka in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region.
• Still, analysts tell TIME that it could be a long road ahead, with negotiations largely abandoned and fierce fighting ongoing.
• Russia did not want to occupy Ukraine, he said, but would demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the country.
• Ukrainians had hoped for months that the forecasts of an invasion from Russia, a nation with which they share much history and culture, could not be true.

"Such an outcome would bring a battered but triumphant Russian army right up to NATO's border from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean." The Ukrainians do not have unlimited resources of course, especially artillery ammunition and long-range precision weapons. 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.

For Ukraine’s part, Zelensky has made it clear that Ukraine will fight to regain control of the fallen regions. “Ukrainians are not ready to give away their land, to accept that these territories belong to Russia. “We haven’t started anything yet,” Putin said in a speech to lawmakers July 7. Although Putin didn’t rule out peace talks, he said it would get “harder” to negotiate the longer the war goes on. “One thing we do know is that Putin is very patient, and he can’t withdraw until he says that he’s had a victory,” Stent says.

• An offensive of that size has not been seen in Europe since the second world war.
• 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.
• Madrid Summit decisions have supplied key elements of the required strategy.

After liberating a handful of villages in the summer, Ukrainian and Russian forces have been caught in largely attritional battles, with neither side making significant gains. At the start of 2023, hopes were high that a much-vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive — expected to be launched in the spring — would change the  dial in the war against Russia. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. If Russia were to invade Ukraine, it would likely employ massive cyber and electronic warfare tools and long-range PGMs. The aim would be to create “shock and awe,” causing Ukraine's defenses or will to fight to collapse. This was wishful Soviet thinking early in its Afghanistan war and America's calculus early in the Iraq war.

Madrid Summit decisions have supplied key elements of the required strategy. Paragraphs 28 and 29 of the new Strategic Concept leave no ambiguity on the continued role played by nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee of Allied security. But to disable the corrosive effect of Moscow’s nuclear blackmail against Allies, a more robust declaratory nuclear policy by NATO is in order.