Following its invasion of Ukraine several weeks ago, Russia’s once-feared military has faced fierce resistance.
Some experts believe that Russia may have overreached, as it has struggled to make the quick progress it expected to and has reportedly lost a slew of high-profile military figures.
“We have no communication. We don’t have walkie-talkies. Nothing,” a bedraggled Russian soldier tells his interrogators in another of the videos published by Ukrainian defenders this month posted to YouTube.
The stakes in Ukraine are far higher than most people imagine, Aleksandr Skobov says. Putin’s war there is “only part of his global war against the fundamental principles of civilized relations among states,” and that means any agreement with him that accepts any of his demands will mark the end of the West and the world it created.
There can be little doubt that “the lion’s share of responsibility” for Putin’s war in Ukraine “rests with Russian society which by its political passivity and indifference to its own freedom and its own security” opened the way for the Kremlin leader to do whatever he wants to, Aleksandr Podrabinek says.
While the Ukraine crisis may put some strain on the Chinese-Russian relationship, it has also spurred deeper collaboration between them. Based on a shared desire to undermine the United States’ global order, their constructive partnership will not only endure the blowback from the Ukrainian invasion but is likely to expand.
Patriarch Kirill has sent a clear signal that he is “with Putin and not with his flock” or even the basic principles of his faith, Sergey Chapnin says. Many Russian faithful are going along with him, but many are not, outraged that the church can’t even follow its own teachings call things “by their own names – war is war and aggression is aggression.”
Ukraine has withdrawn an important contingent of peacekeepers from the United Nations (UN) Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) to defend their homeland. The move symbolises wider concerns that Europe may retreat from Africa as it confronts a growing threat from Russia that so blatantly manifested itself on 24 February.
In the past 12 days, Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers have fended off multiple Russian attacks in and around Mykolaiv, a strategic port city of 500,000 seen as the gateway to Odessa, on the Black Sea.
Ultimately, Russian firepower and manpower far outweigh Ukrainian resources. But interviews in Mykolaiv with Ukrainians who have directly fought the Russians illustrate the growing challenges faced by the invading army, and some reasons for nascent optimism on the Ukrainian side.
Ukrainians are bravely defending their country against Russian aggression, but President Vladimir Putin’s forces have seized or are on the verge of seizing a number of cities across southern and eastern Ukraine.
In the coming months, Russia could potentially gain control over approximately half of the country running from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south and the Donbas in the east. If they are successful, Russian occupying forces will assume responsibility for approximately 20 million people across an area the size of Norway.