As a result, Russia essentially stopped flying fighter jets over Ukraine. Numbers are hard to come by, but Russia had an estimated 1,500 fighter jets before the war began and still has the vast majority of them, probably 1,400 or more. A year ago, most everyone expected Russia to dominate the skies with its much larger and more modern air force. The U.S. is also training about 100 Ukrainians on the Patriot anti-missile system in Oklahoma. The Western countries have gone from training the Ukrainians on specific systems to training larger units on how to carry out coordinated attacks.

• "They understand the wider strategic point, which is that this is a confrontation between the West and Russia and at stake is not just the future territorial integrity of Ukraine but the security construct for Europe and the West with Russia," he noted.
• But Smith also said ATACMS producer Lockheed Martin no longer makes the missiles, and the U.S. military still needs them in its stockpiles.
• Yet the Army is already looking at how it might create a citizens' army.
• Ukrainian officials have spoken bluntly in recent days about the need to boost the supply of heavy weapons to the country if Russian forces there are to be defeated.
• It is theoretically possible for the U.S. to sanction countries that maintain economic ties with Russia.

At the moment, Russias invasion of Ukraine has riveted the world, drawing more attention than the ongoing slaughters in other nationsa double standard that has been widely noted. But that gap in coverage is likely to become even more striking the longer the conflict continues, because the factors that make a long war in Ukraine seemingly inevitable are the same ones that make it unlikely to slip from the worlds collective radar. If conflicts in places such as Ethiopia, Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, and Yemen have proved anything, its that wars are easy to start, but are also brutal, intractable, and difficult to end. The fickle nature of the international media means that protracted conflicts quickly lose the worlds attention, if they ever had it to begin with.

Ukraine suggests Russia failed to provide information on POW route after aircraft downed

Russia is also massively boosting military spending in 2024, with almost 30% of its fiscal expenditure to be directed toward the armed forces. Its military-industrial complex has also ramped up the production of hardware from drones to aircraft. Ukrainian forces have adopted a more defensive stance as circumstances dictate; a senior army general warned last week that front-line Ukrainian troops face artillery shortages and have scaled back some military operations because of a shortfall of foreign assistance. Weather conditions are deteriorating in Ukraine, withmud, freezing rain, snow and ice making offensive and reconnaissance operations challenging.

• The technical condition is good, a representative of the emergency services told RIA Novosti.
• The village of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region could offer a similar stepping stone but Russian forces are reported to have made some advances in the area.
• By early summer Ukraine will be able to use US-made F16 fighter jets for the first time, which it hopes will improve its ability to counter Russian aircraft and strengthen its own air defences.

The narrative is the great struggle of the Cold War, he said, a framing that has helped to attract new recruits. Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all. This war will last indefinitely, with long pauses for cease-fires, he said. At the same time, election season in the United States Ukraines most important backer stands to spur arguments that a war in Europe of unknown duration is a costly nuisance for America. WASHINGTON and ROME Germanys promise early this year to send tanks to Ukraine marked the countrys latest concession and provided a cap to the gradual escalation in the kind of equipment allies were supplying.

Biden says he'll back Ukraine as long as it takes. But some take aim at the price tag

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. To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here. You can get in touch with Brendan by emailing or follow on him on his X account @brendanmarkcole. Brendan joined Newsweek in 2018 from the International Business Times and well as English, knows Russian and French. Mark Temnycky, a Ukrainian-American journalist and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center said that delays in 2023 allowed Russia to fortify positions in the south and east of Ukraine, regroup and re-strategize. Despite Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin's closest EU ally, vetoing a $55 billion support package from Brussels for Kyiv in mid-December, backing from other European allies has been strong.

"They understand the wider strategic point, which is that this is a confrontation between the West and Russia and at stake is not just the future territorial integrity of Ukraine but the security construct for Europe and the West with Russia," he noted. That scenario could embolden critics of the war; increase public discontent with continued funding for Ukraine; and pose a problem in terms of arms production and supplies for the West. " https://etextpad.com/ think the danger for Ukrainians is if they really do end up with a stalemate, where they've gained very, very little territory where a lot of the equipment supplied by the West has been written off with Ukrainians having suffered very significant casualties," Shea said. Ukraine's counteroffensive is likely to make some progress in the remainder of this year, Barrons said but nowhere near enough to end the occupation.

Is UK conscription for a citizen army a realistic plan?

Industrial-age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority. Russia's defence budget has tripled since 2021 and will consume 30% of government spending next year. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw the return of major war to the European continent. The course of the conflict in 2023 marked the fact that industrial-age warfare had returned too.

Maybe Russia cannot provide enough troops to cover such a vast country. Ukraine's defensive forces transform into an effective insurgency, well-motivated and supported by local populations. And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents. The recent arms donations Kyiv still wants fighter aircraft and long-range tactical missiles are predicated on the assumption theyll force Moscow to end its invasion and begin negotiations because military costs are too high. That objective has coexisted with an expectation that Putins government will probably never stop fighting, as losing the war could spell the end to his political power.

• It notes the building gives Ukraine a "localised defensive advantage" and says Russian forces will probably suffer significant losses if they attempt to assault the facility.
• "The U.K. foreign secretary estimated it would be a 10-year war. Lawmakers at the Capitol were told Monday it is likely to last 10, 15, or 20 years and that ultimately, Russia will lose."
• Girkin has accused President Vladimir Putin and the army top brass of notpursuing the Ukraine war effectively enough.

The Pentagon declined to say whether the GLSDB will be used to attack Russian targets in Crimea. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told Defense News that Ukraine would not strike Russian territory with longer-range weapons pledged by the United States. And the near-total control of information by the government is making dissent difficult. Those who are against the war have left, and those who remain are adapting, Meister said. But the sizable swaths of terrain Ukraine wants to liberate will take time, and to even build the necessary forces will take six months, Donahoe estimated. The challenge now is training and equipping an armored force big enough and sophisticated enough to envelop Russias fighting force.