Ten days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has no intention of backing down.
This morning, the Russian Defense Ministry announced a ceasefire to “open humanitarian corridors to allow the civilian population to leave Mariupol and Volnovakha,” which is expected to begin at 10:00 Moscow time (7:00 GMT).
Disturbing footage from the scene continues to emerge, including a picture of a baby being rescued from a brutal attack near Kiev, and other photos showing a frightened woman walking past a burning house after Kremlin forces shelled Irpin.
Russia continues its offensive in southern Ukraine, with Mariupol under bombardment and Odessa and Mykolaiv under threat. Chernihiv in the north and Kharkov in the east continue to be heavily bombed. The capital Kyiv is also under threat, although Ukrainian counterattacks wiped out part of the Russian forces early Friday morning.
Russia shows the movement of its forces in the Kiev region. Troops invaded on 24 February and continue vicious attacks.
Russian troops in Kyiv. After Ukraine, some suggest Putin is also eyeing Moldova, a former Soviet state wedged between Ukraine and Romania.
Despite this, Putin insists Russia is not bombing Ukrainian cities amid growing fears that 100 people are buried under rubble after a residential building near Kiev was hit and 49 people died after a cluster bomb exploded in Chernihiv. .
Here are the possible scenarios for the coming weeks and months, according to Western government sources and think tank experts.
Military quagmire
Ukrainian forces have so far resisted the Russian invasion, repelling an attempt by paratroopers to capture the capital in the early days and maintaining control of major cities such as Kharkiv and Mariupol.
Although Russia claims to have complete air superiority, Ukraine’s air defenses around the capital Kyiv and elsewhere appear to have deteriorated but are still operational, Western officials say.
“It gave them so many problems,” a European source told reporters yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A huge number of Ukrainians have also joined the territorial defense units, and questions remain about the morale of the Russian army and its logistics.
Ten days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, President Vladimir Putin (pictured) has no intention of backing down.
With the support of Western intelligence and a flood of anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles, Ukrainian forces can hold on to the capital and achieve a kind of military stalemate.
Deepening Western sanctions suffocating the Russian economy could force Putin to change his calculus.
This week, Samuel Charap of the American think tank RAND Corporation wrote: “The West may use some sanctions to push Putin to abandon his primary military goal of beheading the Ukrainian government and installing a pro-Russian puppet.”
Pressure from Beijing, which has increasingly become an ally of the Kremlin under President Xi Jinping, may also be necessary.
Intra-Russian shift
Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps a close eye on internal dissent.
The crackdown on independent media and foreign news providers has decimated alternative sources of information about the war, bolstering the power of ultra-loyal Russian state media.
However, small anti-war demonstrations took place in cities from St. Petersburg to Moscow, with at least 6,000 arrests, according to local human rights groups.
There are also signs of cracks in the ruling elite, with some oligarchs, MPs and even the private oil group Lukoil openly calling for a ceasefire or fighting.
The reaction of a woman against the backdrop of a burning house after yesterday’s shelling in the city of Irpen near Kiev
Russian police officers detain a protester during a rally against the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine in St. Petersburg, Russia, yesterday
While it does not seem likely at this stage, the possibility of Putin being overthrown by popular reaction or even a palace coup is not ruled out.
“His personal security is very good, and it will be very good until it stops,” said Eliot A. Cohen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
“This has happened many times in Soviet and Russian history.”
Russian military success
Western defense analysts expect that, given the superiority of Russian forces in weaponry, air power and the destructive use of artillery, they will continue to move forward.
A huge convoy of cars gathered near Kiev on the eve of the storming of the capital.
French President Emmanuel Macron concluded that “the worst is yet to come” after a phone call with Putin on Thursday morning.
A Ukrainian soldier was depicted rescuing a tiny child from a site of complete destruction in Irpen, including a bombed-out bridge.
Pictured is President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. Disturbing footage from the scene continues to emerge
Putin wants to “seize control of all of Ukraine,” his aide later told reporters.
But even if Russian forces overthrow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and break Ukrainian resistance elsewhere, Putin will then have to face the challenge of occupying a country of 40 million people.
Lawrence Friedman, British military historian and professor at King’s College London, wrote this week in Substack: “Entering a city is not the same as holding it.”
The conflict is spreading
Ukraine borders four former Soviet states that are now members of the US-led NATO military alliance, which considers an attack on one member an attack on all.
Putin’s nostalgia for the Soviet Union and his promise to protect Russian minorities living in the Baltic states have left open the question of his territorial ambitions.
After Ukraine, some suggest Putin is also eyeing Moldova, a former Soviet state wedged between Ukraine and Romania.
Workers yesterday cleared the rubble of a school building destroyed by shelling as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Zhytomyr, Ukraine.
Few expect Putin to openly attack a NATO member, fraught with nuclear war, but other provocations are possible.
“Neutral Sweden is closely following Russia’s intentions regarding the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea,” wrote analyst Bruno Tertret of the Montaigne Institute, a French think tank.
Charap warned of “risks of accident, incident or miscalculation that escalate into a war between NATO and Russia” where anything from an accidental missile to cyberattacks could set off the spark.
NATO confrontation
This has always been considered impossible due to the mutual guarantee of the destruction of nuclear weapons.
The US and Russia have opened a so-called “deconflict line” where they can quickly exchange military information to reduce the chance of misunderstandings.
The same method is being used in Syria, where US and Russian troops have been operating on opposite sides of the country’s civil war since 2015.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that a third world war could “only be nuclear.”
But Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces to be put on high alert, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that “World War III can only be a nuclear war.”
Western analysts say such warnings should be taken as an attempt to keep the US and Europe from considering ideas such as creating a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine.
Gustav Gressel, a missile defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: “These statements are mainly addressed to Western audiences to create fear in us and our societies are not safe.” They use nuclear deterrence as a form of information operation. There is no substance.