Why & How & If

Ukrainians will ultimately defeat Vladimir Putin’s army. Ukraine will be sovereign and free once again. Only two questions are unanswered: How long will it take? And how many Ukrainians will have to die before Putin’s soldiers finally leave?"

A Ukrainian drone unit used quad bikes and night cover to ambush Russian forces, The Guardian reported.
Aerorozvidka was first set up by tech-savvy, university-educated Ukrainians.
The elite unit, which flies up to 300 missions a day, is crucial to the Ukrainian campaign.

Russia claims it’s pulling its forces back from the Kyiv suburbs. Former Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul joined American Voices with Alicia Menendez to discuss what the pullback really means and if the world can ultimately trust the word of Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine counterattacks cross-border bombing of Russian oil depots, the United States, Britain and Australia give armored vehicles and missiles. Fight Putin to the end

Now that the war has started, what is the real good and right thing to do? Is it condemning #Putin , doubling down on sanctions, providing weapons to #Ukraine , championing Ukrainian people’s bravery and patriotism and then returning to the Cold War pattern against Russia? I agree that some of these things are what we have to do now. But we should not limit our thinking and actions to these aspects because if we do, the same tragedy might happen again in the near future since the underlying cause of this war has not been addressed, let alone eliminated.

Can adversaries of the United States easily imitate its most advanced weapon systems and thus erode its military-technological superiority? Do reverse engineering, industrial espionage, and, in particular, cyber espionage facilitate and accelerate this process?

Putin’s attack on Ukraine is a litmus test for the transatlantic alliance’s resilience in both economic and military terms. What is an appropriate response to the Russian aggression? Along with economic sanctions, the Western world and in particular NATO will need to review its military capabilities and strategies to implement both deterrence and to assert readiness in the face of further Russian aggression.

Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's *guaranteed*. But how do we know it is?

I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political goals

Experts say the cause of the military conflict can be tied to a complicated history, Russia’s tensions with NATO and the ambitions of Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s military buildup along the border with Ukraine has clearly gotten the attention of policymakers from Kiev to Washington, D.C. CIA Director Bill Burns flew to Moscow to try to avert a crisis, while U.S. intelligence officials are reportedly warning NATO allies that a Russian invasion of large parts of Ukraine can’t be ruled out.