On February 24, 2022, everything changed: death poured from the sky, explosions illuminated the dawn, Russian tanks churned the Ukrainian border, and two hundred thousand pairs of boots marched through its cities.
It was a day that countless individuals dreaded and doubted would ever arrive. Vladimir Putin commanded the invasion of Ukraine on that day. And nothing has remained the same in the year that has passed since that fateful moment.
Nearly half a million combatants on both sides are dead, missing, or injured, torn apart by bullets and bombs on battlefields that eerily resemble those of the First and Second World Wars.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed as a result of Moscow’s missile attacks on hospitals and residences. More than eight million refugees have escaped to Europe, and millions more have been forcibly deported to Russia via filtration camps.
The damage cost currently stands at $700 billion and rising.
The conflict has had global repercussions. It has caused energy costs in Europe to skyrocket. It has led to food insecurity in Africa and the Middle East. From America to Asia, inflation has tightened budgets. A global recession is now imminent.
What was intended to be a three-day “special military operation” to overthrow Ukraine’s government, divide the country, and reestablish Russia as a global power has dragged on for twelve months of bloody and brutal conflict. And no resolution is in sight.
Vladimir Putin, who once ruled Russia uncontestedly, is now weakened, humiliated, and confronting the gravest crisis of his 20-year reign.
He is compelled to purchase drones and ammunition from Iran and North Korea. Such countries as Turkey, Qatar, and Tajikistan keep him waiting for meetings. Even China, which before the conflict pledged a “unconditional” friendship, shies away from doing business with him.
His health has deteriorated visibly; he clutches table edges for support, twitches his hands, and wiggles his feet. He is said to be terminally ill with blood cancer, colon cancer, or Parkinson’s disease, according to rumors.
The Russian economy is teetering on the brink of collapse due to sanctions that threaten to crush it. Wagner supervisor Yevgeny Prigozhin, spy chief Nikolai Patrushev, and Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov circle, biding their time.
Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian who appeared as a footnote in one of Trump’s impeachment controversies, is now an internationally renowned war hero who is mentioned in the same breath as Winston Churchill.
On the morning of February 24, like Britain in 1940, Ukraine found itself surrounded by a superior foe, vastly outnumbered and outarmed. Even its closest companions estimated its remaining longevity in hours and days, as opposed to weeks and months.
However, Zelensky rallied his troops, country, and allies to his cause. The Ukraine and its president are still present one year later. Battle-scarred and hardened by the horrors of conflict, they are not the same as they once were. However, they both cling to optimism.
The West, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, has put aside old divisions, conquered fear, and united in a manner that most people, including Putin, did not believe was possible. Ukraine is now receiving the weapons it requires to not only survive, but also to triumph.
Donations of tanks and long-range missiles are being made. Attack aircraft may follow. The Ukrainian military is training on NATO bases according to NATO standards as the alliance confronts the Kremlin and prepares to admit Finland and Sweden.
Russia, meanwhile, has been compelled to recruit criminals and rapists from its prisons, conscript drunks and beggars into its ranks, and provide them with increasingly rusty Soviet relics to fight with.
The alleged second-best military in the world has suffered a series of ignominious defeats, including the retreat from Kiev, the sinking of the Moskva, the explosion of the Kerch Bridge, the rout in Kharkiv, and the liberation of Kherson.
Russia has lost roughly half of the Ukrainian territory it once occupied. Zelensky and his Western allies believe that the remaining portion can also be liberated. He has assured his people that the conflict in Crimea will end when the last Russian occupier leaves.
Putin, however, claims to differ. The war has not been a complete success, but neither has it been a complete catastrophe. His army still controls more territory than it did a year ago, and he intends to continue sacrificing conscripts until “victory” is achieved.
He still has biological, chemical, and nuclear warheads that are capable of instilling terror in the West, as he once did, despite his diminishing arsenal.
The threat of a Third World War, which stood large on the day of the invasion, has diminished but not vanished over the past year.
The first year of war taught us that Ukraine is capable of defying insurmountable odds, but that even a weak Russian army is capable of inflicting mass destruction and death.
The second year of the conflict is approaching. The likelihood of settlement negotiations is remote. Both parties anticipate months of intense combat. It is impossible to predict how this conflict will end, but it seems unlikely that it will end soon.
Here, MailOnline breaks down the invasion in chapters, from how the battle has unfolded so far to the suffering it has caused around the world; from Zelensky’s rise to wartime leader and swirling rumours about Putin’s health to a look at how the war may eventually come to an end.
The day that shook the globe – and how the battle has unfolded on the ground
As dawn broke on Thursday, February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin gave his military the go-ahead to unleash damnation.
In a harrowing display of shock and awe, a massive convoy of Russian tanks crossed the border and advanced on Chernobyl, while swarms of black attack helicopters swarmed the outskirts of Kiev.
Experts in the military feared the worst for Ukraine as Putin amassed forces and ultimately ordered soldiers to cross the border. It was prophesied that Kiev would fall within a few weeks, if not days.
A year later, we now realize that the Ukraine’s resistance capacity was grossly underestimated.
In the first month of the conflict, Kyiv’s forces pushed the Kremlin’s invaders back from the capital and have since pressed their momentum eastward.
As a result of Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive, the conflict is currently in a state of stalemate, with the front lines barely shifting. However, there are indications that Putin plans to launch another offensive against Kiev in the spring – or even to commemorate the anniversary of the previous offensive.
In light of allegations that the Kremlin could mobilize 500,000 soldiers, the first year of the conflict could be viewed as relatively minor in comparison to what was to come.
Here, MailOnline examines the fluctuating frontlines during the first year of the conflict.
Russia fails spectacularly to capture Kiev.
On February 24, Putin ordered his military into Ukraine after months of threats. First-day images depicted bombs falling on major cities, including Kiev and Kharkiv, and Russian vehicles rolling through cities.
While fighter aircraft, helicopters, and missiles streaked overhead, Russia’s elite paratroopers landed at airports near Kyiv and fierce battles ensued for their control.
The region surrounding Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, which is located just 30 kilometers from the Russian border, fell swiftly to heavy bombardment.
Putin believed that the invasion of his ‘brotherly’ neighbor was merely one phase in a decades-old, ideologically-driven master plan.
Putin has made numerous references to the concept of ‘Russian World’ since assuming office in 2000, particularly since he returned to the presidency in 2012 after serving as Prime Minister.
According to Putin’s 2007 establishment of the eponymous state cultural foundation, the Russian World transcends national boundaries.
It includes “not only Russians, not only residents of Russia, not only our compatriots in foreign lands near and far, emigrants, expatriates, and their descendants… It also applies to foreign nationals who speak, study, and teach Russian, as well as all those who have a genuine interest in Russia and her future.’
This description of the Russian World appears inclusive and optimistic at first inspection. In practice, establishing the Russian World entails securing Russia’s dominance through imperialist expansion of territory and waging a fierce intellectual war against liberal Western philosophy, at least according to Putin.
Effectively, he seeks to restore the great empire of the past by uniting a Russian-speaking tripartite of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, as well as other territories, into one superstate linked by language, culture, and Russian Orthodox Christianity that will not succumb to the West’s draw.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine may appear outlandish, but it should not come as a surprise. In a nearly 7,000-word essay published on the Kremlin’s official website in 2021, less than a year before he ordered his troops onto Ukrainian soil, he explicitly stated this.
Putin once remarked that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” In 2021, he modified this statement by asserting that the Soviet Union was actually “historical Russia.”
Putin’s’special military operation’ to ‘demilitarize and de-Nazify’ Ukraine appears wholly irrational, but given his worldview, it may be entirely rational to him – and the seeds of his invasion were planted in 2008.
During Putin’s tenure as Russia’s prime minister under Dmitry Medvedev, the Russo-Georgian war occurred, and Russia successfully enticed the Georgian military into a conflict with separatist forces in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
This provided an incentive for Moscow to eradicate Georgian troops and declare both territories independent states, paving the way for Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for separatist movements in eastern Ukraine.
Putin’s deputies and separatist leaders supported by the Kremlin spent eight years entrenching themselves in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, permeating local politics and infrastructure, while Russia’s armed forces practiced and perfected their brutal military tactics in Syria.
This preparation enabled the Russian military to initiate an invasion in 2022.
It is evident that Putin had designs on Ukraine for many years before he crossed the frontier with his tanks.
But while the expansion of NATO and the sphere of Western influence may not have been the driving force behind Putin’s decision to order his forces to cross the border, it is a contributing factor at the very least.
His mistrust of the West grew when the United States expressed support for the “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan in 2003-2005, and culminated in 2008 when Bush stated that he “strongly supported” Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO.
It strengthened Putin’s belief that NATO viewed itself as the sole legitimate security alliance in the Northern Hemisphere and intended to destabilize Russia’s post-Soviet sphere of influence.
Putin’s ideological posture on the Russian World is undeniably the primary driver of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; however, he believed that NATO’s expansion posed a threat to his plan to rebuild ‘historic Russia,’ which could only be repelled by military force.
According to reports of a 40-mile-long convoy of armored vehicles en route to the capital, fears mounted that Kyiv would experience the same fate. Small quantities of destroyed tanks were captured on film in the city’s outer neighborhoods.
The armoured column halted for unexplained reasons, possibly due to thick mud, food and fuel shortages, or Ukrainian sabotage. Simultaneously, it became evident that Russia was not winning the ground conflicts.
The stalled column became emblematic of Russia’s early failings in relying on Soviet-era tactics that required slow movement. To wreak havoc on Putin’s forces, Ukraine deployed smaller, more mobile divisions equipped with modern technology such as drones.
Even though Russian troops penetrated deep into Kyiv Oblast, they were never able to reach the city center due to the tenacious Ukrainian defense of the capital.
The assassination attempt on Zelensky failed, and Putin’s forces had completely withdrawn from the region by April 2 – a major humiliation for the Kremlin.
Russia strives to create a land linkage.
Russia had more success in the south of Ukraine, despite its failure in the north.
Russia seized control of the Black Sea and hatched a plan to form a land bridge between the eastern Donbas region and the Crimean peninsula – illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 – amid reports that Moscow wanted to reach Transnistria, a Russian-occupied breakaway republic in Moldova, in the earliest days of the conflict.
Russian forces pressed north from Crimea, spreading east and west, with the intention of linking up with Moscow’s other armies entering the country from the north and encircling Kiev.
As Russia’s forces advanced towards this objective, they leveled towns and cities with artillery fire until they had nearly total control of the south-eastern portion of Ukraine and the Kherson region, including the regional capital.
Mariupol was besieged in March, while Russian forces were halted by resistance in Mykolaiv, preventing their advance on Odessa to the west and further north into the country.
In scenes reminiscent of Grozny during the Second Chechnya War, the city on the border of the Russian-controlled Donbas region with a pre-war population of 425,000 was nearly leveled to the ground by indiscriminate bombardment.
On March 9, a missile attacked a maternity ward, and on March 16, a bomb struck a theater where as many as 600 civilians were taking shelter.
As tens of thousands escaped the city, Ukrainian fighters retreated to the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, a vast complex with a network of nuclear-resistant tunnels and bunkers.
By the time they finally surrendered, they were the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the city, and the works had been nearly completely devastated.
Ukraine sinks the Moskva, revealing Russian atrocities.
According to UN data, far more civilians were slain in March than in any other month of the conflict, despite Russia’s assertion that it does not target civilians.
At the beginning of April, when Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv region and Russian atrocities were discovered in towns such as Irpin and Bucha, the human cost of the war became genuinely apparent.
After the Russian retreat, captured footage from the towns revealed Putin’s occupiers rampaging through the suburbs and murdering indiscriminately.
At least 57 people were killed in April when a Russian missile struck the Kramatorsk railway station as hundreds of Ukrainian civilians attempted to evacuate the country’s east.
The abhorrent acts shook the international community and galvanized Western support for Ukraine. Russia was subjected to harsher sanctions, and – perhaps most importantly – the West increased their supply of munitions.
Days after the bombardment of the station, Ukraine retaliated. On April 13, two Neptune cruise missiles collided with the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva. It was the first occasion since World War II that a Russian warship had been sunk.
Unknown to this day is the exact number of casualties in the Russian naval calamity, but some reports indicate as many as 600 sailors perished.
The brazen attack on the ship that was approximately 130 kilometers from the coast demonstrated Ukraine’s previously unknown long-range missile capabilities, that it was well supported by its Western allies, and that Russia’s sea superiority was not as assured as it had previously believed, causing it to move its vessels further away from the coast.
The following day, explosions were also reported in the Belgorod region of Russia, marking the first reported attacks on the opposite side of the border since the beginning of the conflict.
Putin persisted despite the humiliating incidents.
April marked the second phase of Russia’s invasion, with Moscow asserting that its withdrawal from Kiev was to refocus its efforts on capturing the entirety of the Donbas.
The last combatants in Azovstal surrendered in May, Sievierodonetsk fell to Russian forces in late June, and Lysychansk, the last Ukrainian-held city in Luhansk, was captured in July.
Aside from this, Ukraine was able to halt significant Russian advances during the summer; at this stage in the conflict, Russian forces controlled roughly one-fifth of the country.
The HIMARs missile systems of Ukraine drive Russia back.
Six months into the conflict, the Ukraine officially launched a counteroffensive against the Russian invaders at the end of August, marking the beginning of the third phase of the war.
Kyiv’s forces began using armaments supplied by the west, such as the HIMARS missile system, to devastating effect, penetrating deeply into Russian-controlled territory.
The Ukrainian government announced on August 29 that its military had breached Russia’s first line of defense near Kherson and attacked a military base in the same area.
Explosions at a Russian airbase in Crimea, miles from the front lines, demonstrated how far Ukraine could now strike with its weapons, forcing Russia to pull back its fighter aircraft and strengthen its air defences in the peninsula.
In the north, Ukraine liberated Kharkiv Oblast, the region surrounding the country’s second-largest city, which had been occupied in the early days of the conflict.
The victories provided the Ukrainian military with the initiative.
From there, Ukraine’s troops liberated over 1,600 square miles of territory in a six-day lightning offensive in September – the country’s largest victory since pushing Russia back from Kyiv in March – and on October 1 they captured the strategic hub of Lyman.
The loss of Lyman was a devastating setback to Russian logistics. The commander of the Russian Central Military District, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, was severely criticized following reports of troops retreating without orders, which reportedly infuriated Vladimir Putin. He was fired one month later.
Putin proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson – on September 20 in an attempt to claim victory, despite not having complete control over any of them.
The following day, the Russian dictator ordered the partial mobilization of Russia’s military reservists, meaning 300,000 new soldiers would shortly join the fight. The partial mobilization sparked widespread outrage in Russia.
However, Putin’s nightmare did not conclude with Lyman’s death.
On October 8, a massive explosion severely damaged the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Russia and Crimea, the most embarrassing incident for Moscow in the conflict since the sinking of the Moskva.
Since his forces annexed the peninsula in 2014, Putin’s bridge had been a vanity project. The explosion severed a vital supply route for Russian forces in the south of Ukraine, demonstrating Ukraine’s capabilities once again.
Two days later, Russia bombarded Ukraine with missile attacks, hitting the capital Kyiv and several other cities for the first time in months – killing civilians in apparent retaliation for the explosion that destroyed the bridge.
At the time, reports suggested that Russia’s ruthless General Sergei Surovikin – who was appointed on the same day as the bridge explosion – was behind the attacks, which were designed to impair Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
In the aftermath, it became evident that Russia had employed Iranian-made Shahed 136 suicide drones, indicating that Moscow had run out of conventional missiles. The drones have since wreaked devastation across the nation.
Despite Russia’s attempts to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure, the Ukrainian military continued its offensive.
In November, Russian forces in the south withdrew from the city of Kherson and retreated across the Dnieper River, marking yet another decisive Ukrainian victory.
Winter territorial impasse
As winter approached, a territorial stalemate ensued. The conclusion of Ukraine’s high-intensity counteroffensive in early November meant that its military required time to regroup and prepare for a possible Russian counterattack.
The battle for Bakhmut, a city in the Donbas that became a key objective for Russia and the private military corporation Wagner, attracted widespread attention. There had been fighting there since May, but Russia increased its efforts in the final months of 2022.
Wagner’s involvement in the invasion had been widely reported since April, but the clandestine group assumed a prominent role in the battle for Bakhmut and adopted a new public persona.
Reportedly, Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin recruited 50,000 Russian prisoners to fight for their freedom in his Private Military Company, and they have been used as artillery fodder to clear a path for the organization’s elite forces.
The fighting around Bakhmut has been compared to the “meat grinder” of the First World War, as Russia threw thousands of apparently expendable soldiers against Ukrainian defenses.
Both parties have suffered heavy losses. In January 2023, it was reported that Russia had lost tens of thousands of forces in Ukraine, while Ukraine suffered hundreds of casualties per day.
In January, Wagner boasted that it had captured Soledar, a hamlet near Bakhmut, without assistance from the Russian military, which angered the Kremlin.
Kyiv and the West downplayed the significance of the town, stating that Moscow sacrificed waves of soldiers and mercenaries in a futile battle for a bombed-out wasteland, with analysts stating that it provides little tactical advantage.
As the battle for Bakhmut raged at the end of December, and after enduring weeks of Russian drone attacks, Ukraine used its own drones to strike military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia.
And the new year was marked by yet another Ukrainian assault, this time on a military barracks in Makiivka, Donetsk, purportedly during a New Year’s Eve celebration.
Russia subsequently admitted that 89 of its soldiers were killed, while Ukraine alleged that as many as 400 were killed in the HIMARS strike.
Russia is rumored to be preparing for a new offensive to capture the east of Ukraine and possibly a new assault on Kiev. However, they have been unable to significantly alter the battle lines for months.
According to reports, Putin may call up an additional 500,000 reservists in addition to the 300,000 in September. The west has pledged to increase its military assistance. As Kiev once more battens down the hatches, it is hoped that assistance will reach before Russia launches its next assault wave.
Chapter 2: 365 days of suffering: From bombing assaults to torture, rape, and execution, Russia terrorized Ukraine, but paid a price at home for its invasion.
The world has watched in dismay as Putin’s soldiers have dropped missiles on apartment buildings and hospitals, tortured civilians before shooting them and dumping their bodies in mass graves, and routinely raped women and girls.
After bombs rained down on them, bereaved parents wailed in anguish while holding the small bodies of their children, their hands covered in the infants’ blood.
Women and girls have been pinned down by Russian soldiers after they barged into their homes and subjected to horrific systematic rape and sexual abuse – often with their spouses and families forced to watch.
Men, women, and children, with the youngest known victim being a 14-year-old boy, were executed by Russian soldiers, and their corpses were dumped into deep trenches dug in the ground.
The reality of Putin’s conflict is as follows.
At least 7,000 civilians have been slain due to the indiscriminate targeting of men, women, and children, and nearly eight million Ukrainians have fled to European countries.
In response to these atrocities, European nations and the United States have imposed a series of sanctions on Moscow, which have targeted banks, companies, and Russian oligarchs and officials. In addition to imposing price limits on Russian oil, the West has left Moscow’s economy in a state of crisis.
However, Russia has retaliated against the sanctions by severing or reducing natural gas supplies to European countries, precipitating an energy crisis in Europe and aggravating the inflation that has been afflicting the global economy and harming consumers worldwide.
Ukrainians evacuate as bombs fall around them.
In Ukraine, it has become second nature for civilians to listen for the distinctive whine of an approaching missile.
A year ago, when the first air strikes hit Ukrainian cities, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fled across the frontier into neighboring nations. Fearing the worst, thousands more had fled in the days leading up to the invasion.
In only eleven days, 1.5 million people fled to neighboring countries, making the Ukrainian conflict the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.
Before returning to fight for Ukraine, fathers were seen waving tearful farewells to their spouses and children at train stations. An estimated 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been slain thus far, irreparably separating some families.
One year later, 7.9 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland, with the overwhelming majority – 1.6 million – seeking refuge in Poland. Additionally, Ukrainians have found refuge in Germany, Romania, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom.
Bombardments indiscriminately launched
For those Ukrainians who have remained in Ukraine, Russian missiles have destroyed their homes and towns and murdered or injured their loved ones.
In March of last year, one month into the conflict, Russian soldiers dropped indiscriminate bombs on civilian areas, leaving in their wake death and destruction.
At least 47 persons were killed on March 3 when Russian forces dropped several unguided aerial bombs on an apartment complex in the northeastern city of Chernihev. Two weeks later, seventeen people were murdered when Russian soldiers attacked breadline participants in front of a supermarket in the city.
During a three-month siege of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Russian forces leveled the city with missiles and murdered hundreds of civilians. On March 9, the world witnessed with anguish as Russian forces bombed a maternity hospital, killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child and injuring at least 17 others.
A week later, Russian aircraft once again dropped missiles on civilian areas, this time on the Donetsk Regional Theatre in Mariupol, which housed hundreds of civilians and had the word “children” inscribed in large white letters on the exterior. During the attack, at least a dozen individuals were killed and dozens more were injured.
In April, a Russian ballistic missile equipped with a lethal cluster munition warhead struck a train terminal in the city of Kramatorsk where hundreds of civilians were waiting for evacuation trains. In one of the deadliest incidents for civilians since the start of the conflict, at least 61 people were killed and 100 more were injured.
Continued attacks on civilians.
On 14 January 2023, a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the city of Dnipro resulted in the deaths of at least 44 people, including five children, and the injuries of 79 others.
Since October, Russian forces have also repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving millions without heat during the bitterly cold winter months and plunging Ukrainian cities into darkness.
Conflict offenses
In the early months of the conflict, Russian forces were compelled to retreat from towns and cities across Ukraine; however, as they withdrew, it became evident that they had committed war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.
Since March, mass graves containing the corpses of thousands of civilians, many with their hands tied behind their backs, and torture chambers have been discovered in liberated areas of Ukraine, including the cities of Bucha, Irpin, and Izyum, in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions.
The surviving civilians have described how they were detained by Russian soldiers for months and subjected to electric shocks, waterboarding, and beatings.
Horrific testimonies, such as how Russian soldiers gang-raped a 22-year-old Ukrainian mother, sexually assaulted her husband, and forced the couple to have sex in front of them before raping their 4-year-old daughter, demonstrate that Putin’s men have employed rape as a weapon of war.
As soon as the women’s spouses attempted to defend their wives and prevent them from being raped, the Russian soldiers frequently shot them dead, or threatened to do so.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights envoy, stated a month ago that Russian soldiers have taken more than 20,000 Ukrainian ‘hostages’ and sent them to Russia.
Sanctions by the West against Russia
In response to the horrific revelations of Russia’s war crimes in April of last year, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union imposed more detrimental economic sanctions on Russia, while major companies such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola closed their Moscow operations.
Since then, the West has continued to impose sanctions on Moscow, isolating its largest institutions from the SWIFT financial network and limiting its access to technology and oil and gas exports.
As a consequence of the crippling sanctions, Russia missed a crucial payment deadline in June, marking the first time since the Bolshevik coup that Moscow has defaulted on its foreign debt.
As a result, Russian citizens, some of whom have defiantly protested Putin’s conflict before being thrown into police vans, are experiencing the worst inflation in two decades.
But Russians and the media are not permitted to query or criticize Putin’s war or the harrowing casualties suffered by Putin’s soldiers on the battlefield. If they do, they face 15 years in prison, according to repressive laws imposed in March of last year.
Effects of Russia’s conflict on the international community
Moscow has retaliated against Western sanctions by severing European countries’ access to inexpensive natural gas, thereby increasing inflation and energy costs. After its state-owned gas exporter Gazprom shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany, European officials accused Russia of ‘energy blackmail’
Higher energy and food prices have destabilized global economic activity, as much of Europe endures the winter without Russian natural gas imports.
In a strike to the West, the Kremlin has attempted to replace lost revenues from oil and gas exports to Europe with a pivot toward China, India, and other Asian nations.
Last year, trade between Russia and China reached a record high of $190 billion.
Russia posted a record current account surplus last year, according to the country’s central bank, as a combination of falling imports and robust revenues on oil and gas imports brought in a net $227 billion of foreign currency.
According to experts, Russia’s economy is not yet out of the woods, as sanctions are intensifying and restrictions on Western technology exports will have a long-term impact.
Putin’s war has affected not only Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of Europe, but the entire globe. The targeting of grain fields and supplies by Russia has resulted in food shortages not only for Ukrainians, but also for those in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia where many are already struggling with starvation.
Under an agreement mediated by the United Nations and Turkey in July, Ukraine has been able to export some grain through the Black Sea, putting an end to Russia’s five-month blockade of Ukrainian ports. In an era of intensifying global starvation, its future was deemed crucial when it was extended for an additional 120 days in November of last year.
Chapter 3: How Volodymyr Zelensky went from fresh-faced comedian to hero wartime leader, defying Putin
In 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky defeated a pro-Russia incumbent in Ukraine’s presidential election, transforming him from a relatively unknown Eastern European comedian to the country’s leader.
It was an extraordinary outcome for a campaign that began as a joke (Zelensky’s only previous political role was in the TV show “Servant of the People,” in which he played a history teacher who is inadvertently elected president) but resonated with voters frustrated by poverty, corruption, and the five-year conflict in the Donbas.
But little did he realize at the time that his election victory would lead him to confront Russia’s despotic leader and lead his nation into a war that has become a defining event of the twenty-first century.
Even before Putin ordered his forces across the border, the two leaders had become the primary protagonists in a diplomatic crisis, and the contrast between their respective leadership styles could not have been more stark.
Putin made no secret of his displeasure with Ukraine’s rapprochement with the West, whereas Zelensky took measures to lessen Russia’s influence on his country and expressed a desire to join the European Union and NATO.
In the months preceding the invasion, Western intelligence revealed that Putin planned to invade Ukraine and replace Zelensky with a pro-Russian proxy. It is recognized that this is precisely what he attempted to do in the initial days and weeks of the war.
This attempt failed, and in the year since, Zelensky’s stature has only increased.
Despite the persistent threat to his life and the United States’ offer to evacuate him, the president of Ukraine remained in Kyiv.
According to a senior U.S. intelligence official, he stated in Ukrainian, “I need ammunition, not a transport.”
His courage and refusal to flee while missiles rained down on the capital made him an unlikely hero to many people around the globe. Distributes nightly video bulletins. He traversed the streets of Kiev as Russian troops surrounded the city. He shakes the palms of soldiers on the front lines and visits the wounded in the hospital, all while projecting a message of hope.
When Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv region at the end of March, he visited communities such as Bucha and Irpin that had been devastated by heinous war crimes. Later in the year, he traveled with great courage to the eastern frontlines.
In the interim, he has made dozens of virtual appeals to world leaders at the United Nations, the European Union, and Western parliaments.
His position has made him one of the most well-known figures in the world, and in 2022 he was named Time’s Person of the Year.
Nonetheless, the strain of carrying the aspirations of Ukraine on his shoulders has manifestly taken its toll. Before the conflict, he was a young leader with a shaved face. Currently, he has a beard and his visage has aged. Reports from the beginning of the conflict indicate that Zelensky slept only two hours per night.
It is also important to observe that critics of Zelensky’s government exist outside of Russia. In a recent instance, on December 29, the leader of Ukraine signed into law a controversial media bill that journalist groups deemed authoritarian.
In August, he was bombarded with criticism for failing to warn of the invasion in the preceding days. He downplayed war fears at the time, resulting in Ukrainians remaining in their residences rather than evacuating to safer regions of the country.
Zelensky stated that he wished to prevent a widespread panic and prevent an economic catastrophe.
Even though Ukraine still has problems, Zelensky has not shied away from addressing them. As Russia, an oligarchy, continues to be rife with corruption, Zelensky has clamped down on such practices within his own ranks.
Just one month ago, Kyiv removed 15 corrupt officials, including important allies.
Putin, on the other hand, who was already infamous for the Second Chechen War, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, Russia’s involvement in Syria, and the assassination or attempted assassination of political opponents, has become even more isolated over the past year.
In contrast to Zelensky, he makes infrequent public appearances that are extensively stage-managed and engages in rambling rants about Russian imperialism.
Reports indicate that Putin’s inner circle has diminished since the invasion began, and that it now consists of only a handful of hard-line advisers who are afraid to tell him the truth about Russia’s faltering war efforts.
Putin has severed diplomatic ties with the West, whereas Zelensky continues to serve as Ukraine’s top diplomat.
Instead, he has Kremlin officials, such as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, threaten the West with escalation or nuclear conflict whenever Ukraine receives additional support.
And while Zelensky’s wife Olena Zelenska travels internationally to advocate for her country, it is believed that Putin’s family is holed up in a Siberian bunker, where Putin plans to flee in the event of a nuclear war.
To legitimize the invasion, the Kremlin asserted without evidence that its objective was the ‘denazification’ of Ukraine (Zelensky is Jewish) and the prevention of a (unproven) genocide against the Russian-speaking population in the Donbas. Putin and his allies continue to term the invasion a “special military operation” and refrain from calling it a war.
Zelensky, on the other hand, made no effort to conceal the fact that his nation was at war, and on February 24, 2022, he signed a decree imposing martial law, calling up the country’s conscripts and reservists, and prohibiting all males between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving. In September, Putin took identical actions, ordering a partial mobilization.
The next Ukrainian parliamentary elections are scheduled for next year. Prior to the conflict, Zelensky was unpopular, with a January 2022 poll indicating that only 23 percent of Ukrainians would have voted for him.
Recent polling conducted in March and after the invasion indicated that more than 80 percent of voters would support him in the first round of voting.
With his iron fist still tightly gripping Russia, Putin will never realistically lose an election. The West’s hopes that Putin will step down as president rely heavily on his ouster by other Kremlin officials.
It remains to be seen whether Zelensky or Putin will emerge victorious, given that their destinies are inextricably intertwined and the invasion is ongoing.
Undoubtedly, the president of Ukraine has taken everyone by surprise.
How near are we to World War III and nuclear war?
In the past year, Russia has not been reluctant to rattle its nuclear saber.
Numerous prominent Russian media figures and commentators have explicitly urged Putin to launch a nuclear strike against Ukraine and its Western allies, including the United Kingdom.
Putin and his loyal foreign minister Sergei Lavrov have made no secret of their willingness to use nuclear weapons if the situation calls for it. This could be disregarded as media hype.
However, these warnings should be taken with a grain of salt.
To begin with, there are no military targets in Ukraine that would necessitate a nuclear strike. The frontline in Ukraine encompasses hundreds of miles, and Zelensky’s forces are dispersed accordingly. Although there are a few choke points where fighting is more intense, the frontline in Ukraine is vast and Zelensky’s forces are similarly dispersed
Deploying a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield could eliminate a limited number of Ukrainian fighters in one area, but it would also kill the Russian soldiers stationed there.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in order for Putin to effectively destroy the majority of Ukraine’s fighting forces, he would need to deploy a succession of tactical nuclear weapons along the Ukrainian frontline.
It would also result in the destruction of his own troops and render uninhabitable vast swaths of the territory that Russia is attempting to claim as its own, in addition to almost undoubtedly provoking a military response from NATO.
Even less likely is a Russian attack on a NATO nation now that the United States has made it abundantly obvious that such an act would prompt a swift conventional response from its military, which would be deployed to eliminate what remains of Moscow’s military presence in Ukraine.
NATO possesses its own formidable nuclear threat. The term “mutually assured destruction” was coined during the height of the Cold War, when nuclear tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union reached a fever pitch, but the theory is still relevant today.
In addition, any use of nuclear weapons would undoubtedly cost Russia its few remaining allies. China’s President Xi, one of Putin’s few significant backers, has stated that escalating hostilities in Ukraine is unaffordable and that the international community must continue to oppose the use or threat of nuclear weapons.
However, while the risk of nuclear conflict is minimal, a nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine is a distinct possibility.
Regular shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, came perilously close to the plant’s reactors, and one round of shelling in November damaged a building used to hold radioactive waste.
In January, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, attempted to negotiate a safe zone around the plant to prevent a catastrophe, but stated that military commanders prevented diplomatic progress.
Earlier in the war, Russian troops recklessly invaded Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986, and immediately began digging trenches, driving armored vehicles, and releasing radioactive soil dust.
According to reports from Belarus, numerous personnel suffered radiation sickness and were transported to medical centres for treatment.
Although no NATO personnel have been deployed directly against Putin’s forces, the security bloc’s involvement in the conflict grows with each passing month.
In the early stages of the conflict, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other NATO members imposed severe economic sanctions on Russia, blocking the assets of politicians and oligarchs involved in Putin’s war effort, and providing Ukraine with ammunition, small arms, equipment, and training.
But this material support multiplied rapidly. The United States and United Kingdom shipped tens of thousands of Javelin man-portable surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank launchers to Ukraine in March 2022. Following the 155mm artillery were HIMARS rocket launchers and Starstreak air defense systems.
In 2023, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany ratified Patriot missile defense systems, dozens of armoured personnel carriers, and even tanks.
The provision of incalculable billions in military aid to Ukraine, from Russia’s perspective, implicates NATO fully in the conflict. In January, Russia’s senior diplomat stated as much.
“When Western partners vehemently deny that they are at war with Russia, they are lying…” The extent of the West’s support for its conflict against Russia demonstrates that it has a great deal at stake.
In addition, the concept of collective defense that underpins NATO’s agreement implies that any threat to one country could draw the others into battle.
Article 4 of the NATO agreement permits any member state that feels threatened to request a meeting of the powers to determine how to respond, while Article 5 stipulates that an armed attack against one member state “shall be deemed an attack against them all.”
Poland came close to invoking Article 4 once during the conflict, when a suspected Russian missile struck a farm near the Ukrainian border and killed two people (it was later determined to be an errant Ukrainian air defence missile).
In December, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg remarked, “If things go awry, they can go horribly wrong.” There is no question that a full-scale conflict is possible.
However, if the past year in Ukraine has taught us anything, it is that Russia’s military is hopelessly unprepared for a large-scale land conflict.
Putin may have access to some of the most advanced nuclear weapons, missiles, submarines, and other military hardware in the globe.
However, decades of rank and file corruption at every level of Moscow’s military have eroded the effectiveness of his army and left many of its soldiers inadequately trained and unequipped.
Putin’s initial invasion force was decimated by a better-equipped and-trained Ukrainian army as a result of inadequate preparation, low morale, and questionable battlefield tactics from Russian commanders.
The failure compelled the despot to enlist hundreds of thousands of unwilling conscripts and rely predominantly on the notorious Wagner Group to maintain his offensive in Ukraine.
Putin has millions of men of fighting age at his disposal and could theoretically continue instituting rounds of conscription to replenish his forces, eroding Ukraine’s military over many months or years – albeit at a high price.
However, this strategy could only succeed if the conflict is limited to Russian and Ukrainian forces.
If Moscow somehow triggered NATO’s deployment of its mighty fighting force from 30 member states (soon to be 32 if Sweden and Finland’s application to join is approved by Hungary and Turkey), its army would be annihilated.
Putin pressing the nuclear launch button could abruptly become a very real possibility if he faces defeat and the ultimate collapse of his autocracy in the scenario described.
How the world’s tyrants have joined forces with Russia
While the majority of the international community reacted with dismay when Vladimir Putin ordered his barbaric invasion of Ukraine, the Russian leader has been able to count on the support of his band of tyrants and despots from Belarus, China, North Korea, and Iran.
Putin’s allies have all declined to condemn the war, and some have openly supported Russia by providing a launching pad for the invasion, as Belarus did, or much-needed weapons in the face of a defiant and well-equipped Ukrainian army.
This assistance, in particular the provision of lethal drones, surface-to-surface missiles, and rockets from Iran and North Korea, has enabled Russia to continue its brutal and indiscriminate war.
Putin has also been able to count on China, which has its own territorial ambitions in Taiwan and strong economic ties with Moscow, to stand alongside Russia.
Beijing has parroted the Kremlin’s talking points regarding NATO expansionism and the West’s ‘Cold War mentality’ and has criticized journalists for using the terms ‘war’ and ‘invasion’, although it has cautioned against allowing the conflict to escalate to a nuclear level.
Throughout the conflict, the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has remained a key ally of Putin. Since February 2022, when Russian forces launched their assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kiev from Belarus, there has been Russian and Belarusian military activity in the country.
Putin owes Lukashenko his allegiance because the Russian autocrat supported the then-threatened Belarusian leader during protests that nearly ousted him from power under his repressive regime without fair and free elections.
Lukashenko, who has been accused of human rights abuses for his repression of the press, has continued to participate in joint military exercises with Russia.
However, Putin’s conflict has not only been supported by Belarus, China, North Korea, and Iran, the usual suspects.
Within days of Putin’s invasion, world leaders made their position on the war plain by voting for or against a United Nations resolution condemning the brutal conflict.
The four authoritarian regimes of North Korea, Belarus, Eritrea, and Syria – each led by an autocrat accused of human rights abuses or even war crimes – saluted the West and Ukrainians with two fingers while 141 nations stood with Ukraine.
To preserve their national security interests and vital trade ties with Russia, India and Pakistan joined China in refusing to condemn Putin during the vote.
India continues to be the world’s largest purchaser of Russian arms, including the S-400 missile defense system, in an effort to defend itself against Pakistan and China.
In the meantime, Pakistan has refrained from criticizing Putin’s conflict in order to preserve a new trade agreement that will see the country import approximately two million tonnes of wheat and natural gas.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who signed the agreement, defended the possibility of pumping billions of dollars into the Kremlin’s treasuries by stating that Pakistan’s economic interests “required” it.
In the meantime, hundreds of Syrian soldiers have been deployed to Ukraine by Russia.
The US government reported in December that North Korea delivered an arms cargo, including rockets and missiles, to the Russian Wagner mercenary group in order to bolster its forces.
North Korea, which has publicly declared its support for Putin’s war, has categorically denied that it has shipped weapons to its Cold War ally and has accused the United States of committing ‘criminal acts of bringing bloodshed and destruction to Ukraine’ by supplying Kiev with a large quantity of weapons.
North Korea has sought to strengthen ties with Russia even as most of Europe and the West have distanced themselves, blaming the United States for the crisis and condemning the West’s ‘hegemonic policy’ as justification for Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.
The government of North Korea has even hinted at a desire to dispatch construction workers to help rebuild pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. In July, North Korea was the only country besides Russia and Syria to recognize Donetsk and Lugansk’s independence.
In recent weeks, South Africa’s invitation to Russia and China to participate in war exercises, which coincided with the anniversary of the invasion, sparked outrage.
The action was the clearest sign to date of the strengthening relationship between South Africa, whose ruling ANC party is allegedly in the pocket of a sanctioned Russian oligarch, and the anti-Western authoritarian regimes of China and Russia.
Lavrov visited South Africa, Angola, Eswatini, and Eritrea to increase international support for Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.
China, one of Russia’s largest economic supporters, may, however, be withdrawing its support.
In January, Chinese officials referred to Putin as “insane” and asserted that Beijing believes Russia will lose its war in Ukraine and emerge from the conflict as a “minor power.”
In a rare rebuke of Putin’s invasion, several Chinese officials warned Beijing not to’simply follow Russia’ and blindly support the conflict in Ukraine.
The officials stated that they believe Russia will lose the war in Ukraine, and that as a result of this costly and lethal conflict, Moscow will emerge as a “minor power” with a diminished economy and a poor reputation on the international stage.
The caustic remarks from Chinese officials, with some accusing Putin of being ‘crazy,’ mark a significant turning point in the ostensibly cordial relations between Russia and China, just one month after the two nations pledged to strengthen bilateral ties.
It appears that President Xi Jinping is attempting, through his officials, to distance himself from Vladimir Putin and his war, as he concentrates on improving his diplomatic relations with the West.
Indeed, China’s tone has changed as Moscow’s forces have been pummeled on the battlefield. Putin was forced to concede publicly in September at a summit in Uzbekistan that Xi had “questions and concerns” after meeting with him.
From trembling hands and stumbling feet to cancer and Parkinson’s, Putin’s advancing years have been plagued by rumors of ill health. who could replace him?
Upon Putin’s 70th birthday in October, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia urged the nation to pray for two days, pleading with God to grant the Russian president ‘health and longevity.’
He may require more fortitude than ever before.
The physical prowess of the Russian president as a hunter, martial artist, and horseman has long been a pillar of his portrayal as a strong and commendable leader in state media.
But the aging autocrat is now overweight and puffy, has been afflicted with coughing fits, and in some footage appears to be struggling with motor control – indicators of possible ill health that coincide with Putin’s decision to cancel a number of public appearances and events.
In December, for instance, Putin abruptly canceled a presidential excursion to Pskov due to “unfavorable flying conditions,” despite the fact that weather forecasts indicated clear skies.
He postponed a trip to Russia’s largest tank factory in Nizhny Tagil, in the Ural Mountains, as well as his customary end-of-year appearance with his government ministers.
Putin canceled his beloved end-of-year ice-hockey game and refused to hold his customary December press conference, during which the president typically speaks for up to four hours and fields queries from journalists and viewers.
Putin has appeared extremely uncomfortable on numerous occasions during the past year.
He was observed gripping the edge of a table for support as he slouched in his chair during Kremlin meetings, a far contrast from the muscular hunter portrayed by state media.
His legs and feet appeared to be quivering and gyrating uncontrollably in other footage of him on diplomatic visits, where he was seated.
During a July visit to a war memorial, he was observed sweating and stumbling while attempting to swat mosquitoes off his scalp with one arm while the other hung limply at his side.
In many of his recent speeches and addresses, he has been unable to conceal a persistent wheeze.
Numerous sources, including exiled Russians, ‘insider’ Telegram channels, and Ukrainian intelligence officers, have asserted that he is battling severe health conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and cancer, as a result of these factors.
If these claims are true, Putin, whose health is deteriorating and whose grip on power is weakening, will be compelled to appoint a successor after more than two decades at the helm, despite his desire to avoid being forcibly ousted.
As with all autocrats, Putin maintains a very small inner circle, and despite having greased the palms of innumerable Russian elites, his list of trusted individuals is likely to be empty.
A few names emerge as credible contenders for the Kremlin’s throne, the most prominent of which is former FSB spymaster Nikolai Patrushev, who shares Putin’s contempt for the West and is Putin’s 71-year-old ally.
If Putin deems the former intelligence chief too elderly, he may choose Patrushev’s son Dmitry, who in his forties has already served as agriculture minister for five years, is trained by the FSB, and was previously the head of the Agriculture Bank.
Dmitry Medvedev, the former president, prime minister, and Putin subordinate; Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow; and Alexei Dyumin, the president’s former bodyguard, are also viable candidates.
Former presidential security commander and current governor of the Tula region, Dyumin has repeatedly demonstrated both his abilities and his loyalty. Once, he infamously drove an enraged brown bear away from one of Putin’s numerous mountain retreats.
However, the likelihood of any of these potential successors taking office is contingent on Putin’s decision to voluntarily step down, which is not a certainty.
If Putin’s conflict in Ukraine continues on a downward trajectory and discontent among Russia’s elites reaches a boiling point, Kremlin insiders or opportunistic wildcards may mutiny and remove the ailing president by force.
As with previous Russian presidents Gorbachev and Khrushchev, a coordinated conspiracy to usurp Putin through political will and influence would emanate from within Russia’s official power structure.
According to Russian law, Mikhail Mishustin would assume control of the Kremlin in the event that Vladimir Putin is declared unfit to carry out his duties as president. He could attempt to initiate a premature impeachment by persuading other prominent Russian lawmakers that the president can no longer govern.
But if Putin’s rule is ended by brute force – an unlikely but plausible scenario – the conspirators behind the rebellion will be vastly different.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, is a Russian oligarch and one of Vladimir Putin’s longtime allies.
Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, he has developed significant influence and power of his own, recruiting thousands of hardened criminals to bolster the ranks of his privately financed, independent army.
Russia’s ongoing military operations in Ukraine have relied significantly on Wagner men and equipment, and the businessman-turned-warlord has been unusually critical of Putin and Russia’s military in recent months.
Given his resources, military support, and leading role in Russia’s invasion, Prigozhin would be in an ideal position to launch a coup, perhaps in conjunction with the leader of the Chechen republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, who despite being a self-proclaimed ‘foot soldier’ of the Russian president also has hordes of fighters at his disposal and is equally critical of Putin’s failed invasion.
Putin remains in the Kremlin for the time being, and despite the rumors surrounding his health, Western officials are not convinced he is on the verge of a physical or mental collapse.
John Sullivan, the former US ambassador to Russia, told Foreign Policy magazine that he had seen Vladimir Putin up close several times in the months preceding the invasion of Ukraine and that it was improbable that he was suffering from a chronic illness.
I have no cause to believe that he is anything other than a 70-year-old Russian male receiving world-class health care who is currently experiencing world-class stress.
Putin, upon realizing that Kyiv would not fall during the Russian army’s lightning attack during the first week of the conflict, promptly informed his military commanders that they were underperforming and assumed de facto command of the operation.
Since then, he has ordered multiple reorganizations of the command structure, firing and demoting officials left and right who failed to meet his unattainable objectives.
Valery Gerasimov supplanted Sergei Surovikin, who was known as “General Armageddon” for his brutal and indiscriminate tactics during Russia’s intervention in Syria, as Russia’s overall commander of the armed forces in January.
Gerasimov is widely regarded as one of the primary architects of the initial invasion and has already been harshly criticized by Prigozhin, Kadyrov, and pro-Russian military analysts.
Surovikin held the position for only three months, having succeeded General Alexander Dvornikov, who had held the position since April.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s long-suffering defense minister, has somehow avoided being fired, but he is tasked with parroting Putin’s official lines and, given his education in civil engineering, is unlikely to have any real strategic input in Russia’s tactical decisions on the frontline.
Under Putin, Russia has long been an authoritarian state, but in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president has effectively transitioned from autocrat to full-fledged dictator, whose circle of allies is swiftly shrinking.
His invasion froze the assets of elites he paid a substantial sum to ignore while he usurped power. The military commanders he had entrusted with a five-year military operation in Syria have been mocked, demoted, and terminated. And there is no doubt that he has alienated an incalculable number of Kremlin insiders and members of his security services by making sweeping decisions without consultation.
Recent rumors about Vladimir Putin’s health may be exaggerated, and it’s conceivable that he intends to maintain his iron grip on power for many months or even years. However, the remainder of his reign, however long it may be, will undoubtedly be fraught with tension. And isolated.
How could everything conclude?
The Kremlin had hoped that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would result in a swift victory, but twelve months later, neither party has achieved a military breakthrough nor is willing to accept a status quo-based settlement.
Analysts are concerned that the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022 will not conclude soon, and that its intensity may increase in the second year.
Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think center, stated, “It shows no signs of being close to its conclusion.”
Each party believes that time is on their side and that settling now would be a mistake.
Experts believe that the Russian side, following recent successes in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, is likely preparing a spring offensive.
However, Ukraine appears determined to regain lost territory, aided by the United States and European governments, whose support for Kyiv appears to be increasing.
It has even declared its intent to regain control of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, a goal that has aroused some concern in the West.
Earlier this month in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron told Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky that he was “determined to assist Ukraine achieve victory.”
“Fair enough” triumph?
However, this does not necessarily imply that the conflict will end in a decisive Russian defeat, according to Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations, another US think tank.
“I believe the most probable scenario is that Ukrainian gains will result in a “good enough” victory,” she said, followed by “continuous fighting in some territories” as Russia attempts to retain Crimea.
Russia may be able to mobilise large numbers of new soldiers, but they would need to be trained, fed, and supplied with equipment – tasks the Russian army has been “really bad at so far in this conflict.”
According to Dimitri Minic of the French Institute of International Relations, the variety of arms Ukraine obtains from its western allies will be decisive.
Longer-range artillery, for instance, “could enable the Ukrainian army to break the cycle of attack, counterattack, and defense, weaken Russia’s ability to recuperate, and achieve a decisive victory,” he explained.
A’strategic’ victory, according to him, could involve dividing the Russian army deployment in Ukraine in half via Zaporizhzhia, a city and region in southeastern Ukraine.
Minic cautioned, however, that Moscow did not give up even after Ukraine humiliated the Russian army by recapturing the southern city of Kherson.
The Russians will perform any action.
Minic stated, “The Russians will do anything, including limitless mobilization and impoverishing their entire nation if necessary, to retain occupied territories and continue their conquests.”
Alterman stated that he could envision multiple scenarios, including ‘Russia depleting the rest of the world and consolidating gains.’
I could envision a Russian leadership transition that ends the conflict. I could conceive of some form of truce, but it’s too early to tell,” he admitted.
To date, neither party has demonstrated a genuine desire to negotiate.
Zelensky has proposed a 10-point peace plan that includes Russia’s recognition of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and complete troop withdrawal.
Minic stated that Russia could “temporarily” tolerate Ukraine’s independence and even a pro-EU and pro-NATO government in Kyiv “in exchange for a recognition of Russian conquests in Ukraine.”
According to specialists, Ukraine will never cross this red line.
the threat of nuclear weapons
The role that nuclear weapons may play in the next phase of the conflict is also uncertain.
Early in the conflict, Russia brandished a thinly veiled threat of nuclear weapons.
This turned out to be a ruse, according to Fix, but a nuclear scenario could become a’very serious possibility’ if Ukraine manages to retake Crimea, according to Minic.
If things reach that point, he said, internal dissent in Russia may well boil over due to fears of nuclear conflict, and because any use of nuclear weapons would be viewed as President Vladimir Putin’s weakness and not his strength.
Putin has been perceived as confronting pressure within Russia, but from a faction led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner militia group, that is even more aggressive and extremist.
Electoral events, such as the general election in Ukraine in October and the presidential election in the United States next year, could have a significant impact on the future of the conflict.
Fix stated that while US support is ensured for this year, congressional approval of a new aid program for Ukraine is not a given.
If the war drags on, some allied governments in Europe may also confront voter fatigue and political opposition.
She added, “It will be more difficult to explain why this war persists.”
We must recognize that Ukraine must achieve significant advances and victories by 2023.
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