Tuesday marked 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, exhausted troops are battling on multiple fronts, Kiev is under constant drone and missile attacks, and officials are preparing to recapture the White House in January. Preparing for Donald Trump.
In a boost to the embattled country, US President Joe Biden gave the green light for US missiles to be used against targets deep inside Russia, potentially limiting its options for launching strikes and delivering supplies to the front.
But the dramatic shift in policy could be reversed when Trump returns to the White House in January, and military experts cautioned it would not be enough to change the course of the 33-month-old war.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed, more than 6 million are living as refugees abroad and the population has fallen by a quarter since Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion by land, sea and air, which Europe’s largest conflict since World War II began.
Military losses have been devastating, although they remain a closely guarded secret. Public Western estimates based on intelligence reports vary widely, but most say hundreds of thousands have been killed or injured on both sides.
The tragedy has affected families in every corner of Ukraine, where military funerals are common in major cities and remote villages, and people are enduring sleepless nights over the sounds of air raid sirens and anguish.
Now the withdrawal of Trump, who has vowed to end the fighting quickly – without specifying – raises questions about the future of US military aid and a united Western front against Putin, and raises the prospect of negotiations to end the war.
There are signs of increasing possibilities for talks
With Ukraine entering uncharted territory, a sense of tension has become palpable as Moscow and Kiev are pushing to improve the situation on their battlefield before any talks.
Already emboldened by Iranian attack drones and North Korean artillery shells and ballistic missiles, Russia has now deployed 11,000 North Korean troops, some of whom Kiev says have clashed with Ukrainian forces who have attacked Russia. Captured a part of the Kursk region.
A senior Kiev official said Pyongyang had the capacity to send 100,000 troops.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has some of its best troops trying to hold on to the small slice of Russian territory it captured as a bargain in August.
Kiev says Russia has deployed 50,000 troops there, while Kremlin forces are also making their sharpest advance in Ukraine’s east since 2022 – and also stepping up pressure in the north-east and south-east Are.
With the onset of winter, Moscow resumed its airstrikes on Ukraine’s struggling electricity system on Sunday, firing 120 missiles and 90 drones in the biggest airstrike since August.
In addition to US authorization to attack military targets inside Russia with US-supplied weapons, external financial and arms support is also important.
Despite two consecutive years of moderate growth, the Ukrainian economy is still only 78% of its pre-invasion size, with GDP projected to decline by a third in 2022. Ukraine’s once-giant steel and grain industries have suffered a setback.
Russia demands Ukraine to give up territory and NATO ambitions
The United Nations human rights monitoring mission has confirmed the deaths of 11,743 Ukrainian civilians, although some Kyiv officials believe the number is much higher.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that Ukraine should try its best to end the war next year through diplomatic channels. But he has emphatically shut down any ceasefire talks before Ukraine is provided with proper security guarantees.
The Kremlin has said its war objectives remain unchanged since Putin said in June that Ukraine should abandon its ambitions to join NATO, and withdraw from four Ukrainian regions that its forces partially control. , All this is tantamount to surrender for Kiev.
A group of small Ukrainian flags honoring the dead now lines a corner of Kiev’s Independence Square, once the epicenter of mass pro-Europe protests that ousted Ukraine’s then-Moscow-backed president in 2014.
Russia responded to the protests by annexing Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula, Crimea, and supporting a paramilitary rebellion in the east that left 14,000 people dead, before a series of two talks in the so-called Minsk format led to a halt to fighting with Kiev.
After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Putin on Friday for the first time in nearly two years, Zelensky said the move reduced the Russian leader’s isolation. He also spoke out against the idea of renewed Minsk-style talks.
He said, “We want to warn everyone: there will be no ‘Minsk 3’; we need real peace.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
