The invaders key advantage is the number of troops available about 300,000, almost all of whom are already committed to Ukraine. Still, its an open question whether the U.S. will be able to indefinitely continue its current level of support, said Mark Cancian, a CSIS senior adviser who has studied the volumes of artillery used in the war. Blumenthal has joined other lawmakers particularly pro-Ukraine Republicans in pushing President Joe Biden to give Zelenskyy most of the weapons he requested, including long-range ATACMS missiles and F-16 fighter aircraft. The ultimate end to this is the Ukrainians take back as much pre-Feb. 24 territory as they can get, force Putin to the bargaining table, and then ultimately Ukraine would have to compromise somewhat on issues like Crimea and portions of the east and arrange for solid security guarantees going forward, Smith told Defense News in a phone interview.

• They have also created a patchy land corridor connecting Crimea to Russia for the first time since that area was taken in 2014.
• We now know the Russian leader is willing to break long-standing international norms.
• And they said winning will depend on a Congress with the resolve to ensure continued support to Ukraine.
• UK military advisor, Nicholas Aucott, says Putins disastrous military campaign has diplomatically diminished Russia as it turns to North Korea and Iran.

There remains speculation that the Kremlin will seek a fresh mobilisation, and another worry is that Beijing may start covertly supplying Russia. While defense spending in the United States and Europe is trending upward, in large part because of Russias attack, industrial capacity to crank out weapons and ammunition has emerged as a bottleneck. He agreed to a House rules change that would allow any member to initiate a vote to remove him as speaker, forcing him to tread carefully even on issues that enjoy majority Republican support such as Ukraine assistance. While the bipartisan majority of lawmakers support arming Kyiv, 57 Republicans voted against a $40 billion emergency aid supplemental in May. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made several concessions to those Ukraine aid skeptics to secure the votes to win his protracted speakership battle. The Pentagon declined to say whether the GLSDB will be used to attack Russian targets in Crimea.

Government activity

But polls show that does not equal pacifism, with the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians supporting a prolonged defensive war. The reason why this is called imperial overreach is because a common thing that happens with a lot of empire endeavors is you overextend yourself and create an ungovernable entity. That is the risk that this scenario poses, let alone the challenge of having enough military success to do the conquering.

• "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.
• A year ago, most everyone expected Russia to dominate the skies with its much larger and more modern air force.
• Even if the passage to democracy isnt chaotic and violent, such a governments first order of business wouldnt be to evacuate all occupied territories.
• In the United States, he noted, everything from industrial policy to diplomatic and military strategy to domestic politics similarly will need to be refashioned for this new conflict.

As bad as the situation on the Russia-Ukraine border is right now, it does not currently involve a direct military confrontation between Nato and Russia. Because let's face it, that is what a lot of people are understandably asking and thinking in the light of the Kremlin's recent actions over Ukraine - actions and statements that have triggered a deluge of denouncements and sanctions from the West. Western powers are acutely aware this crisis is being closely watched by the rest of the world. But both of these demands would break key Nato principles, namely that the alliance should be open to any European country that wants to join and that all Nato members should be sovereign nations. In 1994, the UK - along with the US - signed a memorandum at an international conference in Budapest promising "to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine".

In depth: Its going to be hard and its going to be bloody

It is the duty of the military to analyse that threat, and they still might be proved wrong. But European nations closer to Russian borders appear to be taking it more seriously. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has focussed the West's military minds. UK military advisor, Nicholas Aucott, says Putins disastrous military campaign has diplomatically diminished Russia as it turns to North Korea and Iran.

• One may imagine something like the outcome of the Korean War, with the warring sides remaining not reconciled and irreconcilable, always on alert, but more or less securely divided, Lipman told me.
• Eastern European countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland - once part of Moscow's orbit in Soviet times - are all now Nato members.
• The EU's decision to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova is more than just symbolic.
• It is clear to the most dispassionate observer of the war that Ukraine is having to fight very hard, and take casualties in troops and equipment, including the armour supplied by Nato.
• One ex senior minister suggested to me that there was a generational divide between those who had lived with the threat of the Cold War era, and those who had not.

Neither was his 2015 intervention in Syria to save the government of Bashar al-Assad a wild-eyed gamble. He deployed no ground troops there, relying solely on airstrikes and missile attacks to avoid an Afghanistan-style quagmire. But for all of Ukraine's heart and courage in facing down multiple, sustained attacks from Russia's military in the north, east and south of the country, many analysts and strategists believe it is only a matter of time before Ukraine is overwhelmed by Moscow's military might.

Russia's economy is still working but sanctions are starting to have an effect

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, also called for sending long-range missiles to Ukraine alongside advanced Gray Eagle and Reaper drones. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, expects the war to end at the negotiating table, but said serious diplomacy hasnt begun because Putin is still clinging to maximalist goals. Moscow has proved resourceful when it comes to building autonomy into critical goods, Lichfield explained. For example, the tactic of repurposing dishwasher electronics for weapons, mocked in the West as a sign of desperation, probably means somebody thought about that from the beginning, he said. In the course of the past year, Putins domestic propaganda strategy has morphed from a message of fight the Nazis in Ukraine to fight the West there, said Stefan Meister, a Russia and Eastern Europe expert at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations.