For now, Volodymyr Zelenskyy maintains he will continue to fight to the bitter end. Ukraine's resistance and willingness to fight remains strong,but if there is a Russian offensive on the horizon as some are predicting their fortitude will once again be put to the test. Russia could make a push for more land or the flow of weapons to Kyiv could be halted, bringing forwarda stalemate. With so much of Ukraine's fate still uncertain, analysts say all outcomes remainpossible. Ask any analyst or observer how they think the war in Ukraine will play out, and they'll tell you their guess is only as good as the next offensive. "Leaving Ukraine [is] done with a heavy heart," she said as she packed her bags and prepared for a long drive to the border with her husband.

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. Massive cyber-attacks sweep across Ukraine, targeting key national infrastructure. President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile. President Putin declares victory and withdraws some forces, leaving enough behind to maintain some control.

Ukraine war: despite Russian setbacks, an end to the conflict is not yet insight

"But if Central/Eastern Europe felt abandoned by those powers, it's not hard to imagine a Polish or even a Ukrainian nuclear programme." "The United States maintains by far the world's most powerful nuclear stockpile, but with the US out of the mix, the French and British, with their much smaller arsenals, would be Europes only nuclear deterrent," Mr OBrien says. He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources".

• Ukraines military successes are not only a consequence of the countrys soldiers skills and determination but also of the support it has received from its western partners.
• If he was, perhaps, facing defeat in Ukraine, he might be tempted to escalate further.
• It is possible that the war could end with a peace deal, though a settlement is difficult because of Russia's and Ukraine's different goals and what they both view as their rightful territory.
• In reality, if Ukraine is going to force Russia from all its occupied territory, it is likely to take several more offensives, many months at least, and a dramatic change in Kremlin thinking.

Ukrainian replacement troops go through combat training on Feb. 24 in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Shortly before https://bagge-albrechtsen.mdwrite.net/how-do-ukrainians-think-about-russians-now-1708116831 invaded last February, less than a third of Ukrainians supported foreign boots on the ground in Ukraine. There seems to be some degree of sensitivity in Ukraine to Russia's claims it's waging a proxy war with the West over Ukraine.

As fierce fighting continued, and videos spread of tanks rolling into Ukrainian territory, many on social media asked what Russia's president was thinking. Further east in Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, the BBC's Eastern European Correspondent Sarah Rainsford said people did not expect such a full-on assault. The Ukrainian armed forces said they had shot down five Russian planes and a helicopter - which Russia denies - and inflicted casualties on invading troops. There have also been reports of troops landing by sea at the Black Sea port cities of Mariupol and Odesa in the south.

Four possible options for the future of Ukraine

Ukraine is assembling a force of more than 100 western Leopard 1 and 2 tanks, plus others, and a similar number of armoured vehicles that it hopes to use whenever the spring muddy season eases, to smash through Russias defensive lines in a D-day offensive. Some Ukrainian experts fear a pincer movement to encircle Donbas and the east from Sumy in the north and Velyka Novosilka in the south, allowing Russia to occupy most of the four Ukrainian provinces it has unilaterally claimed to have annexed. At this point, Russia could call for a ceasefire to retain what it has, and run a defensive campaign to consolidate its battered military. Ukraines war reaches the one-year mark with no immediate end in sight.