What could happen in the Russia-Ukraine war in 2024?

Russia's Ministry of Defence and the Kremlin commented on the attacks Tuesday, the latter denying they were carried out in response to an alleged Ukrainian attack on a marketplace in Russian-occupied Donetsk on Sunday in which several dozen people died and many were injured. Russia launched another wave of missile strikes across Ukraine in the early hours Tuesday. The capital Kyiv was targeted, as was the second-largest city of Kharkiv, and several other regions.

• Later that year, Russia deployed hybrid tactics, such as proxy militias and soldiers without insignia, to attack the Donbas region, where 14,000 people have died since 2014.
• 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.
• Russia could also justify a further invasion of Ukraine by recognising the territorial claims of the two separatist governments.
• Recent heating breakdowns in 16 locations across Russia amid sub-freezing temperatures show that the country has routinely prioritized military spending over re-investment in general public infrastructure, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence said Thursday.

When asked why the plane was shot down and whether it was a deliberate act, the Kremlin spokesperson said, "You should have the phone number of President Zelenskyy's administration. Call and ask this question." Girkin has accused President Vladimir Putin and the army top brass of notpursuing the Ukraine war effectively enough. Knowing that she risked arrest, she ignored an instruction from "Gestalt" to head to the airport and catch a flight. "I feel great pain and shame that my gullibility and my naivety led to such catastrophic consequences. I didn't want to hurt anyone," she told the court earlier this week.

Is Russia losing the war?

But western leaders still fear Russia could be poised to make a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia could seize much of the east and demand a new political arrangement from Kyiv or simply annex the area, as it did with Crimea, experts said. Moscow could try to gamble that limited action would fracture NATO's unity, as some European governments might be reluctant to impose severe penalties in that case, Hodges said. Without a sharp response, Russia might then press ahead with more operations. Moscow increasingly restricts the movement of Ukrainian-bound vessels in the area, and experts say Russia could blockade the southeastern port cities of Berdyansk and Mariupol, choking off an important shipping channel. Short of a full-blown invasion and occupation of all of eastern Ukraine, Russia could choose to take more limited actions that could increase its leverage over Kyiv and test Western resolve and trans-Atlantic unity, Breedlove and other experts say.

• That figure cannot be confirmed, but it followed a US estimate of some 100,000 Ukrainians killed or wounded by November.
• On the face of it no one wants this conflict to spread but there is always the law of unintended consequences and mistakes and misunderstandings escalating into an expanded conflict, as has happened in wars in the past.
• He has spoken of the capture of this territory, which includes the cities of Mariupol and Melitopol, as a "significant result for Russia".
• Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv's mayor, said a building and cars were on fire in one district of the city while the windows of an apartment building were shattered by a blast wave in another area.

Russian energy company Novatek is likely to resume large-scale operations at its Ust-Luga processing complex and Baltic Sea terminal within weeks, following a suspected drone attack seen disrupting naphtha flows to Asia, analysts said on Monday. Ukrainian armed forces operating in the region denied they had carried out the attack, stating Sunday that they "did not conduct any combat operations with means of destruction." It's not the first time Poland, Ukraine's western neighbor, has launched military aircraft in response to a perceived threat from Russian attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine's air force said it destroyed 21 out of 41 Russian missiles launched at the country overnight in attacks that left five dead and dozens wounded. 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.

Black boxes recovered from downed Russian plane, media reports

Many have taken refugee in oblasts (basically, administrative regions) in western and northwestern Ukraine. In Mariupol, a city of 400,000 that has been under Russian siege for days, people were reportedly melting snow for drinking water. Humanitarian groups say the fighting is making it difficult to deliver aid or to reach those civilians left behind — often elderly or disabled people, or other vulnerable populations that didn’t have the ability to flee.

For now, Sedova said she is more worried about subtler attacks — like influence campaigns that aim to "sow discord between us and our allies in our resolve" to act jointly against Russia. "There's a geopolitical premium, or call it a fear premium, in the price of oil," Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit, told Morning Edition. "An expectation that as this crisis spirals worse, that supplies of oil from Russia are going to be disrupted." Either way,  if Europe's natural gas supply is pinched, that could cause energy prices — which have already been climbing — to rise even further.

How Putin changed his war aims

It's still possible Russia could pull back its troops, although Moscow's tough language suggests otherwise. "You have a Ukrainian land army that has gotten much better, much more capable," since 2014, said  Breedlove, who is now at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank. Europe’s most divisive energy project, Nord Stream 2 bypasses the traditional gas transit nation of Ukraine by running along the bed of the Baltic Sea.

• Only the certainty of retaliation can dissuade the Kremlin from seriously contemplating such an option.
• Here's how the invasion will have ripple effects far outside the borders of the conflict.
• Historically, the market has bounced back relatively quickly after geopolitical events.
• "The US has repeatedly warned of conflict escalation in the Middle East, and yet repeatedly acted in ways that have now made that outcome a reality (supported throughout by the UK).
• With or without a nuclear threat dimension, Russia’s neighbours already have valid reasons to fear the Russian predator.

“All the nation is involved, not only the army,” said a Ukrainian person who has been supplying medicines. The United Nations has confirmed at least 2,149 civilian casualties, including 816 killed as of March 17, though these numbers are likely undercounts, as intense fighting in some areas has made it difficult to verify statistics. Urban warfare is particularly calamitous, as civilians who have not evacuated are often caught in the middle of battles that happen block-by-block. Russia’s military tactics in cities — witnessed in places like Syria and Grozny in Chechnya in 1999 — have shown little regard for civilian protection. Spencer, the urban warfare specialist, said even Putin is limited, to a degree, by the rules of war, and so he is likely to claim that civilian infrastructure — like hospitals — are also military targets.

Less than two weeks into Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the country's people and armed forces continue to mount a staunch — and undeniably brave — resistance against Russian forces. As in Syria, victory does not have to result in a sustainable settlement. It could involve the installation of a compliant government in Kyiv or the partition of the country. Alternatively, the defeat of the Ukrainian military and the negotiation of a Ukrainian surrender could effectively transform Ukraine into a failed state. Russia could also employ devastating cyberattacks and disinformation tools, backed by the threat of force, to cripple the country and induce regime change. With any of these outcomes, Ukraine will have been effectively detached from the West.

At its Summit in Madrid in June 2022, NATO recognised this and offered an upgraded package of support. The volume and speed with which more sophisticated weapons systems (including heavy artillery, missile systems, armoured vehicles, and air defence systems) are supplied to Ukraine in the coming weeks will be decisive in preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine’s defences. 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. The regime, led by a delusional and ageing dictator, is prone to irrational decision-making.

And once again, many analysts are warning of dire consequences for the aggressor. On February 11, British Minister of State for Europe James Cleverly predicted that a wider war in Ukraine “would be a quagmire” for Russia. In a rational cost-benefit analysis, the thinking goes, the price of a full-scale war in Ukraine would be punishingly high for the Kremlin and would entail significant bloodshed.