When will the war in Ukraine end? One year on, we answer your questions about the conflict

Notably, in a reversal of perceptions a year ago, some experts could envision a decisive Ukrainian victory against Russia, but none forecasts a decisive Russian win against Ukraine. One reason that countries such as Germany have been reluctant to send heavier weapons to the Ukrainians is that Berlin does not want to give Putin any pretext for escalation. Just ask Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose improbable assassination in Sarajevo sparked World War I. That said, there wasn't much of a political will for third countries to sanction Cuba at the time.

Russia is throwing waves of recruits and mercenaries into close-quarters battles around towns like Bakhmut and Vuhledar. The money is coming through and Kyiv is still holding steady, battered and bruised but determined to resist Russian aggression. Putin can’t keep his forces on the offensive all year long and now has to keep an eye out for new Ukrainian strikes on assets not only in Crimea (such as the recent hit on a large landing ship in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in occupied Crimea) but also in Russia proper.

After a year of war in Ukraine, all signs point to more misery with no end in sight

And that has direct consequences for the future of the war in Ukraine. Putin’s presidency began with the second Chechen war in 1999, when separatist rebels sought independence from Russia. The war, which ended with the Chechen capital razed to the ground and Chechen resistance largely stamped out, left a lasting imprint on Putin’s approach to regions seeking to break away from Russian influence, according to analysts. Meanwhile, Russian demands for Ukraine’s demilitarisation and neutrality are a “non-starter”, according to Slantchev. Polls in Ukraine show that the public overwhelmingly rejects concessions to Russia.

• So a more likely end point here is not a negotiated peace, but rather a conflict that consolidates around lines of control.
• Other senior officials in Kyiv say they are convinced that Mr Putin is opposed by informal but organised networks of disenchanted insiders.
• 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 hasn’t begun because Putin is still clinging to “maximalist” goals.
• For democracies, long-term consensus in support for war has always been more complicated than for autocrats with no accountability.

Instead, its forces are facing a 600-mile front line and extensive Russian defensive fortifications — in some places up to 19 miles deep — that were built in winter while Ukraine was waiting for more heavy weaponry from its allies before launching its counteroffensive in June. 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. It started, they said, with his disastrous decision to mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. The Wagner mutiny, and Mr Prigozhin's denunciation of the Kremlin's justifications for the war have, they said, removed what remained of Mr Putin's chances of hanging on.

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But the uncertainty surrounding President Putin and his regime, almost a year and a half into a disastrous war and after the Wagner drama, might feed the anxiety of those Nato countries who would prefer the war to end around the negotiating table, not on the battlefield. Senior Ukrainians are still doing their best to manage expectations about the summer offensive. They believe some of their Western allies, as well as supporters in the media, have become over-excited about Ukraine's army and its Nato equipment. 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. As for Ukraine's offensive, Mr Podolyak said the Wagner mutiny did not last long enough to influence the fighting along a front of 1,800 kilometres, the longest - he said - in any war since 1945.

• "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.
• With so much of Ukraine's fate still uncertain, analysts say all outcomes remain possible.
• Meanwhile, Russian demands for Ukraine’s demilitarisation and neutrality are a “non-starter”, according to Slantchev.
• A U.S. intelligence report revealed Russia had lost 87 percent of its pre-invasion forces, or 315,000 troops and with a renewed mobilization expected after the election showing Putin's willingness to sacrifice his own people.
• This means that the willingness of the general population to suffer in the face of high costs is of the utmost importance.

We also need to keep in mind that there have been some successes, including pushing back the Black Sea Fleet through the effective use of naval drones. By https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-is-uk-not-sending-troops-to-ukraine.html of July there was no point in pretending that all was going well. One problem is it leads to playing down the benefits the US has always got in its conventional operations from superior firepower. As we learnt more it also became apparent that the demands of close coordination of complex operations in tough conditions were beyond fresh units that had not quite enough training.

Russia's at war with Ukraine. Here's how we got here

Without improved coordination between units it was difficult to scale up the effects and take advantage of any breakthroughs. The bigger question was whether the crisis would destabilise the regime. Putin dithered, not dealing with the dispute while in its early stages, and then could only be rescued by doing a deal with people he’d just called traitors, albeit one on which he later reneged (as with so many of his deals). Yet six months on Putin does not give the appearance of having suffered long-term harm.

• The challenge now is training and equipping an armored force big enough and sophisticated enough to envelop Russia’s fighting force.
• In a matter of days, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has escalated to one of the biggest military conflicts in Europe since the second world war.
• When I asked the official who wanted to remain anonymous about recent tactical gains in the east, including a handful of small villages, he lifted his hand with his finger and thumb pinching the air perhaps half an inch apart.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces have essentially been locked in a slow, grinding fight since November, particularly around the gateway to the north and central parts of Luhansk, as the war shifted into positional warfare.
• The winter will be over and he can see what territory, if any, has been taken.

But it may not be implausible if the people who have benefited from Mr Putin no longer believe he can defend their interests. Over the past year, Russia has, at times, temporarily taken control of large swathes of Ukrainian territory. But this back and forth could mean the war “is here to stay”, at least in the immediate future, according to Mathieu Droin, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.