EU partners getting ready to militarily confront Russia following their illegal invasion of Ukraine 2 years ago

More and more voices are being heard from inside and outside Europe,  about the US political confusion in dealing with Ukraine's  military support, and ready to take matters in their own hands,   specially now Putin is under lots of pressure at home by democratic forces.

Ukraine war: Will Putin be able to survive a negotiated peace or loss ?

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his three-pronged invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022, his goal was to erase Ukraine as a sovereign nation in a matter of days. At the time, it seemed a plausible goal, in Russia and in the West. More than a year later, Ukraine's survival is a much safer bet than Putin's.

Ukraine has systemically and strategically taken back half the territory Russia seized, inflicting humiliating loss after debilitating setback. As Ukraine's battlefield victories pile up, the U.S. and its NATO allies are giving it increasingly sophisticated weapons.

Russia's 'catastrophic' missing men problem Why Western tanks might help Ukraine beat Russia What would actually happen if Putin hit Ukraine with tactical nukes?

"If 2023 continues as it began, there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to fulfill President Volodymyr

 Zelenskyy's New Year's pledge to retake all of Ukraine by the end of the year — or at least enough territory to definitively end Russia's threat," Liz Sly suggested at The Washington Post.

Read more at:       https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/1020161/will-putin-survive-his-catastrop and

https://www.cato.org/blog/can-putin-survive-settlement-war-ukraine

Russian activists fight on from exile

The Moldova-born Russia is one of this year's recipients of the Free Media Award from Germany's Zeit Foundation. And this is only the latest in the string of accolades and awards for the 36-year-old, who is a member of multiple international investigative networks, including the team behind the Panama Papers investigation.

In Russia, Anin's Important Stories (IStories.media) website first drew headlines in 2020 by looking into procurement of ventilation machines during the COVID pandemic. In the same year, they also published a report on one of the most sensitive topics in the country — apparent corruption linked to the family of President Vladimir Putin. Anin was forced to leave Russia the following year.

Read more at: https://www.dw.com

Russian Economy; Putn's war with Ukraine a disaster for Russia's value of the ruble.

The Russian currency has broken another threshold in its decline in value. Over the weekend, 1 ruble was worth only 1 US cent. This means 100 rubles had to be paid for $1 US. The ruble also continued to lose value against the euro, with €1 at times costing nearly 110 rubles.

The ruble fell to its lowest point since March 2022 when the currency crashed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In the following few months, the currency regained the lost ground as Russia benefited from significantly higher energy prices. However, over the past year, the ruble has steadily declined.

Read more at: https://www.dw.com

Ukraine War: the war could suddely come to an end if Putin, who is rumored to have Parkenson, is removed from power

SICK Vladimir Putin's "days are numbered" as the tyrant faces being carted off to hospital in a "sudden end" to his rule, the former head of MI6 has warned. 

Rumours have swirled for months about the 70-year-old Russian leader's reportedly failing health - fuelled by his bloated face and trembling legs.

 Read more at: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21212116/putin-days-numbered-parkinsons-spy-chief/

Ukraine war: Putin's regime threatened

• Wagner boss Prigozhin says his forces are stopping their march on Moscow to avoid bloodshed
• Wagner paramilitary forces were earlier driving north on the main highway towards Moscow, where new security measures had been put in place, and local residents were told not to travel.
• The Kremlin accused the boss of private paramilitary company Wagner of attempting to stage a coup. 
• Yevgeny Prigozhin insisted his forces were "patriots" who had the support of the Russian people. 
• Prigozhin said his Wagner troops captured the Russian army HQ in Rostov-on-Don without firing a shot
• In a speech to the nation, Vladimir Putin described Wagner's actions as a "stab in the back." 
• Ukraine's President Zelenskyy says that in Russia there's "so much chaos, no lie can hide it".           Read more at: 
• https://www.euronews.com

Russia: will Putin's reign cause the disintegration of Russia ?

Vladimir Putin's continued rule will lead to the "disintegration" of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has warned.

The exiled Russian businessman, who was once considered the country's wealthiest person, was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day roundtable conference in Brussels centred on the future of Russia and the country's opposition.

The conference, called "The Day After," included EU and Russian opposition representatives and was organised by the major political groups of the European Parliament.

But Khodorkovsky said that active resistance to the war in Ukraine is not as prevalent as the opposition would like to think.

"Putin fails to completely fill people's brains with his propaganda. However, unfortunately, people's perceptions are changing under the pressure of propaganda," said Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of the oil company Yukos.

Read more at: https://www.euronews.com

Russia: will Putin survive the Ukraine war ?

Russia’s war of choice shattered these assumptions. In the heart of Europe, at least 18,000 civilians are dead, 14.5 million displaced, and thousands more tortured, mutilated, forcefully resettled. The trauma and misfortune Russia has wrought, unprovoked, on Ukraine is akin to those depicted in the tragedies of antiquity—advanced weapons such as drones and missiles notwithstanding. The barbarity of Russian warfare defies everything modernity stands for.

When this war is over, though, there is still hope that Ukraine will take its place in a brighter and honorable future, earned through the heroism of its people. The same cannot be said for Russia, which now finds itself staring down the inevitable black hole of its future.

Read more at:https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/10/russia-ukraine-putin-war-future/

Ukraine War: Putin says Russia will store tactical Nuclear weapons in Belarus

Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said on Saturday, according to TASS state news agency.

Putin said he reached an agreement with Belarusian president — and his closest regional ally — Alexander Lukashenko.

"We agreed with Lukashenko that we could place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the nonproliferation regime," Putin said, according to the TASS report.

Read more at: https//www.dw.com

Ukraine - Mariupol; A criminal usually returns to the scene of the crime, as dld Putin

A day after being accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, scene of some of the worst devastation of his year-old invasion.

State television showed extended footage of Putin being shown around the city on Saturday night, meeting rehoused residents and being briefed on reconstruction efforts by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin.

The port city of Mariupol became known around the world as a byword for death and destruction as much of it was reduced to ruins in the first months of the war, eventually falling to Russian forces in May.

Read more at: https://www.cb.cpm

Ukraine war: If Putin wins this war NATO and EU will be on life support

Khodorkovsky – once Russia's richest man and the founder of Open Russia, an alliance of progressive Russians – said Putin has no choice but to see the invasion of Ukraine through to the end to satisfy his political base of "patriotic nationalists". 

"I am convinced that Putin cannot stop," he said. 

With Western help, Kyiv could "crush Putin", Khodorkovsky said. And defeated, the Russian president would likely lose his hold on the country. 

"Russian society is deeply marred by propaganda," he said. "But support for the war should not be overestimated." 

Read more at: https://www.france24.com

Russia: Putin says,world living in most dangerous times ever - takes no blame and "pins all blame on the West"

In a wide-ranging speech on Thursday, he sought to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a move that has left his country internationally isolated.

Mr Putin also accused the West of nuclear blackmail against Russia to force allies to turn away from Moscow.

The West has denounced recent veiled nuclear threats by the Kremlin.

Earlier this week, the Nato military alliance condemned unsubstantiated claims by Russia that Ukraine might use a "dirty bomb" - conventional explosives laced with radioactive material.

Read more at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63417487

Russia: Local lawmakers in St.Petersburg and Moscow call for the resignation of Putin, following the disasterous Russian military campaign in Ukraine and economic hardship Russìa ìs sufferiñg as a consequence.

Local Russian lawmakers in both St. Petersburg and Moscow issued calls this week for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be removed from power over the war in Ukraine — a potentially risky move in a country where dissent can lead to imprisonment or worse. 

Municipal deputies from the Smolninsky District Council in St. Petersburg, the Russian president's hometown, issued a statement calling on Russia's parliament to remove Putin from power and charge him with high treason for launching the war in Ukraine.

The Council of the Smolninskoye Municipal District decided to appeal to the State Duma deputies with a proposal to bring charges of treason against President Putin in order to remove him from office," Palyuga stated in the tweet with the document, adding, "The decision was supported by the majority of the deputies present."

Read more at: https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-lawmakers-call-for-putin-removal-from-power-over-ukraine-2022-9

Ukraine War: It is high time to put an end to "Bully Putin" his reign

The world was not able to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but "the notion somehow that diplomacy is dead is not correct," says Canada's ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae.

"What is true is that when you're dealing with a really aggressive country — like Russia at the moment — it's really difficult to deal with that without resisting forcefully their aggression," Rae told The Current's guest host Mark Kelley.

"When somebody is an aggressor, like when somebody is a bully in a schoolyard, you have to respond. You can't just say, 'I want to make peace with the bully, so I'm going to give in to the bully,'" he said.

Read more at: www.cbc.com

Ukraine war: Belarus has been taken 'hostage' by Russia

The current agenda of Belarus-Russia relations appears to be dominated by a single question: Will the Kremlin manage to drag the Belarusian armed forces into military action against Ukraine? It would seem that nothing less than the survival of Belarus as a sovereign state rests on this question right now.

Read more at: https//www,carnegieendowment.org/politika/88317

British-Russian Relations: Britain arrest wealthy Russian for money laundering in London

Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Saturday it had arrested a "wealthy Russian businessman" on suspicion of money laundering as the UK attempts to disrupt potential criminal activity by oligarchs linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The unidentified 58-year-old was one of three men detained on Thursday.

The Russian businessman was arrested at a "multi-million-pound residence" in London, according to the NCA.

What do we know so far?

As well as suspicion of money laundering, he was also arrested on conspiracy of defrauding the UK's Interior Ministry and conspiracy to commit perjury, the NCA said.

Read more at:https://www.dw.com

Ukraine war: It is time to stop pussy footing - if Putin wants to play hard ball, so can the West.

Ukraine war: Let us be honest - Putin started this war, and he can end it, If he doesn't, the West should give him an "offer" (ultimatum) he can not refuse. It is time to stop this cruel war and the principal instigator, whatever it takes.

Read more at: https://www.eu-digest.blogspot,com

Ukraine War: Biden says US will not be intimidated by Putin's reckless threats

President Joe Biden has warned Russia that the United States will not be intimidated by reckless threats after Vladimir Putin declared the annexation of four occupied regions of Ukraine.

Read more at: https://www.bbc.com

Nucleair war: the return of the Nucleair war

"Our country also has various means of destruction, and, in some cases, they are more modern than those of NATO countries," President Vladimir Putin told Russians on Wednesday. "If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will, of course, use all means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people," he said.

Read more at:https: //www.dw.com

Ukraine war: Russia mobilisation plan risky, to make Ukraine run out of bullets before Russia runs out of soldiers

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced a partial mobilization to shore up armed forces for his invasion of Ukraine. DW spoke with security expert Gustav Gressel about the strength of the Russian military and its chances for success in light of the partial mobin.

 Read more at: https://m.dw.com/de/themen/s-9077