What could happen if Russia wins war in Ukraine? Experts consider the scenarios

More sanctions came after Russia's interference in the U.S. election in 2016. Last April, the U.S. levied sanctions against Russia after the 2020 SolarWinds cyberattack, which compromised nearly 100 companies and government agencies, including Microsoft, Intel, the Defense Department and more. "The most likely scenario in my mind is a major military offensive in Ukraine," said Vindman, a former director for European affairs at the U.S. Russia has 100,000 troops lined up next to Ukraine, with tanks and artillery. While it remains unclear whether Russia will invade Ukraine, experts such as retired Lt. Col. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-is-a-molotov-cocktail-ukraine.html are not confident that Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold off.

"What you have, since 2014, is you have a country that's continued to develop and coalesce around a national identity," he said of Ukraine. "You have a country that's achieving fairly significant levels of growth." Blinken said there was still time for the countries to reach an agreement.

How NATO's expansion helped drive Putin to invade Ukraine

Russia has also purposefully raised the level of risk for the possible use of nuclear weapons, the main goal primarily being to discourage Western Allies from offering military support to Ukraine and to instil fear in decision-makers. A long-held taboo that made an actual application of nuclear force unthinkable has been verbally discarded. While many experts calculate that risk to be low - not higher than five percent - Putin and his aides have chosen to abandon the rational caution exercised by the majority of his Soviet predecessors.

• "What you have, since 2014, is you have a country that's continued to develop and coalesce around a national identity," he said of Ukraine.
• In sum, the United States, its NATO allies, and Ukraine could impose immediate and painful costs on any Russian invaders.
• Russia’s main demand that Ukraine never be part of NATO and the organisation won’t expand further into Eastern Europe has been rejected.
• Labour's Keir Starmer and many Conservative backbenchers have called for further military options to be explored.
• Ukraine will do all it can to keep pressure on the Russians there to make it untenable for the Russian navy in Sevastopol, the handful of air force bases there and their logistics base at Dzankoy.

They might increase stocks of PGMs, such as the new medium-range ballistic Precision Strike Missile. Given Russia's potential mass use of long-range PGMs, NATO may have to improve its aerospace defenses. Ukraine, with substantial help from the United States and NATO, is prepared to deter and defend against attack. In 2014 in eastern Ukraine, Moscow had to insert regular forces after hastily organized Ukrainians beat back Russian irregulars.

Where do things stand now after a week of talks?

It's still possible Russia could pull back its troops, although Moscow's tough language suggests otherwise. "You have a Ukrainian land army that has gotten much better, much more capable," since 2014, said Breedlove, who is now at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "A victorious Ukraine would not be a permanent ward of the West," it says, arguing that restored to its 1991 borders its economy is big enough to support its own military. "Russia can pose a major conventional military threat to NATO for the first time since the 1990s in a timeframe set to a considerable extent by how much the Kremlin invests in its military." A victorious Russian army at the end of the Ukraine war, the ISW says, would be combat experienced and considerably larger than its pre-2022 forces. These scenarios are not mutually exclusive - some of each could combine to produce different outcomes.

• Madrid Summit decisions have supplied key elements of the required strategy.
• 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.
• However, don’t expect to see Jeremy Corbyn being carted off straight away.
• Second, he thinks that a western-leaning Ukraine is dangerous for Russia.

Despite warnings from the US and its Nato allies that any invasion by Russia of Ukraine would have "severe economic consequences," Moscow's military build-up on the border continues. Nations in the West, including the UK, have offered their support to Ukraine by supplying weapons and economic aid. But last month they confirmed plans to set up a medical facility in Ukraine. President Joe Biden has condemned the attack - much like his response to growing conflict between China and Taiwan - vowing to hold Russia accountable for their actions, alongside leaders from the UK, European Union, United Nations and NATO.

Long war

"Oftentimes, cyber-operations go hand in hand with influence," she said. "They're targeting a change of decision-making, a change in policy in that direction, a change in public opinion." Power grids, hospitals and local governments could all be targets, she said.

"And I think Russia's well aware of many of the things that we would do if they put us in a position where we have to do them." Among them are Russia's desire to have "legally binding guarantees" that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO, the removal of NATO arms from Eastern Europe, a ban on intermediate-range missiles in Europe and autonomy for eastern Ukraine. Unprecedented, supposedly game-changing US and EU sanctions will follow an invasion. They include potentially crippling curbs on Russian banks, corporations, exports, loans and technology transfers, diplomatic isolation and the targeting of Putin’s personal wealth and that of his oligarch cronies.

• They could help deny Moscow the capacity to conduct a large-scale heavy fire power campaign to rapidly occupy Ukraine east of the Dnieper River and seize key cities, such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa.
• In this context, appropriate stockpiles of military equipment are essential.
• Russian forces could move to secure a canal that Kyiv shut down in 2014.
• The new NATO Strategic Concept, which was adopted in Madrid on 29 June, explicitly takes NATO in that direction (para. 21).

And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place. Industrial-age warfare bends significant parts, or in some cases whole economies, towards the production of war materials as matters of priority. Russia's defence budget has tripled since 2021 and will consume 30% of government spending next year. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw the return of major war to the European continent.

• If Russia recognises their expanded borders, it may order its troops to begin an offensive against the Ukrainian army.
• The BBC reports that the UK government will utilise recent legislation to impose restrictions on the people and organisations linked to Russia - as well as measures to personally target Vladimir Putin.
• So far the UK government has sent troops (now withdrawn) to train the Ukrainian army, and supplied them with defensive weapons.
• Hours before the attacks began, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine made a dramatic televised plea to the people of Russia, saying he wanted to speak to them directly after Mr. Putin had rejected his phone call.

"They could simply be casualties of a military invasion," Rediker said. Further sanctions, energy market disruptions and cyberwarfare could reach Americans seemingly far removed from the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Here, Russian army tanks are loaded onto trains to move them back to their permanent base after drills in Russia.

Should he need to, President Putin could extend mobilisation and drag out the war. Russia is a nuclear power and he has indicated he would be prepared, if necessary, to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia and cling on to occupied Ukrainian land. "We will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff," he warned.

• A man was also killed in shelling outside the major eastern city of Kharkiv.
• More than 14,000 people have died in the fighting that has occurred since 2014.
• Public buildings and metro stations would be used as air raid shelters, while anti-aircraft guns might be hidden in parks.
• Gross human rights violations and chemical weapons atrocities, as in Syria, cannot be ruled out.
• But he said Russian forces massed on the border were still missing some crucial elements - such as full logistical support, ammunition stocks, field hospitals and blood banks.
• Russia is a nuclear power and he has indicated he would be prepared, if necessary, to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia and cling on to occupied Ukrainian land.

By avoiding Russian efforts at rapid encirclement, Ukraine could trade space for time. Stingers could down Russian airlifters and helicopters providing logistics support to forward fighters. Putin could order Russian troops to enter separatist-held areas in the east in a mostly symbolic show of force. Western governments and Ukrainian officials say Russian forces and Russian-armed proxies are already on the ground. By rolling into separatist-controlled areas in an explicit way, Russia could keep tensions with Kyiv high without having to fire a shot, Breedlove and some experts said. And even once Russian forces have achieved some presence in Ukraine's cities, perhaps they struggle to maintain control.