It is vital to remember that anything Ukrainians, especially the ones running the country, say about their Russian enemies comes in the heat of a fight that they see, correctly, as a struggle for national survival. Senior Ukrainian officials who spoke to the BBC here in Kyiv all argued that President Putin could not ride out a catastrophic loss of authority. "I think the countdown has started," said Andriy Yermak, President Zelensky's closest adviser. The drama over the border in Russia has hardened the view in Kyiv that Mr Putin's time as Russia's president is coming to an end.

• While the bipartisan majority of lawmakers support arming Kyiv, 57 Republicans voted against a $40 billion emergency aid supplemental in May.
• If we see the average Ukrainians willingness to suffer and fight lagging, it should give us cause for concern.
• Maybe Russia cannot provide enough troops to cover such a vast country.

This means that the willingness of the general population to suffer in the face of high costs is of the utmost importance. Second, he controls the state media apparatus and has censored other media organisations, limiting the information available to the general public. Third, since there are not free and fair elections, there is no way other than mass mobilisation and revolution for the Russian people to overthrow Putin. The invasion is likely to have major effects on people around the world. Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leaving millions of people fearing for their futures. To indicate which parts of Ukraine are under control by Russian troops we are using daily assessments published by the Institute for the Study of War with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.

Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

In his self-assessment, Phillips OBrien concludes that he was too optimistic in assuming that the US and its allies would transfer the long-range systems necessary to attack and disrupt the supply lines behind enemy lines. And Ukrainians were putting a priority on liberating territory and that required a land offensive in some shape or form. There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine. The Russian air force - which has played a low-key role so far - launches devastating airstrikes.

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. Russian forces are already trying to slow down tanks in Ukraine with mines, trenches, and pyramidical, concrete dragons teeth, a type of fortification not seen in combat since World War II. Ukrainian forces, once equipped and trained for combined arms warfare and tank tactics, will be designed to punch a hole through a defensive network, Donahoe predicted. On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian forces attacked Ukraine without frozen ground to support their armored vehicles, which meant they had to stick to roads, where they stood out as easy targets. In Jensens view, even the collapse of Russias conventional force or a traditional Ukrainian victory may not mean the war is over; either could lead to nuclear escalation by Russia.

The Next Global War

And the United States should do everything possible to support it, including, if Congress approves more funding, by providing the more advanced weapons Ukraine has requested. One year ago, Russia launched a war that many never expected it to wage and assumed it would quickly win against a cowed Ukraine and its allies. For a war that has defied expectations, those questions might seem impossible to answer. Yet I recently posed them to several top historians, political scientists, geopolitical forecasters, and former officialsbecause only in imagining potential futures can we understand the rough bounds of the possible, and our own agency in influencing the outcome we want. Since the counteroffensive was launched in June, only a handful of villages have been recaptured.

• Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities see the continuing destruction of their country and conclude that political compromise might be better than such devastating loss of life.
• This suggests that the two sides will have difficulty ever resolving the information problem.
• Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didnt yield the immediate results for which experts hoped.
• Some observers have suggested that continued defeats on the battlefield might result in Putins downfall.
• 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.

Remarks by Lloyd Austin, Americas defence secretary, add to the ambiguity. After visiting Kyiv last month he embraced the justice party, saying the West should help Ukraine win and weaken Russia. Three weeks later he seemed to tack to the peace camp, calling for an immediate ceasefire following a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu. Germany has called for a ceasefire; Italy is circulating a four-track plan for a political settlement; France speaks of a future peace deal without humiliation for Russia.

Elsewhere on the BBC

It's too early to plan a victory parade in Kyiv but all the momentum is with Ukraine now and there is no doubt in my mind that they will win this war, probably in 2023. This may only happen, however, if the West stands firm in its support for Ukraine, in the face of increased domestic pressures linked to the costs of the war. Vladimir Putin expected Ukraine's passive acceptance of its more powerful neighbour's actions, with no meaningful involvement of other countries. This grave miscalculation has led to a protracted conflict, with seemingly no end in sight.