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UNDP warned that if the conflict drags on and if more support to the country is not forthcoming quickly it could wreck almost two decades of economic progress.

In addition to dire development setbacks, the UN agency explained that the environment is expected to suffer, while societal inequalities are likely increase.

To help prevent these shocks and protect hard-won development gains, we need peace now, said UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner.

He insisted that among the agencys primary objectives, UNDP was working to sustain critical governance structures and services, which constitute the bedrock of all societies.

He added: The war in Ukraine is causing unimaginable human suffering with a tragic loss of life and the displacement of millionsAn alarming economic decline, and the suffering and hardship it will bring to an already traumatised population must now come into sharper focus. There is still time to halt this grim trajectory.

Early UN estimates indicate that nearly three in 10 people in Ukraine need life-saving humanitarian assistance. Based on the current direction of the fighting, 18 million people will likely become affected, and more than seven million may have to flee their homes.

One in two Ukrainian businesses have shut down completely, while the other half has been forced to operate well below capacity, UNDP reported.

As one of the largest UN agencies on the ground in Ukraine, priorities include immediate crisis response and maintaining core government functions to ensure that public services can be maintained.

In a statement, UNDP noted that staff have remained operational throughout the conflict and that their presence has been bolstered with targeted deployments in key areas, such as debris management, damage assessment and emergency livelihood support, including cash-based assistance.

Initial estimates are that $250 million per month in funding will be needed to cover partial income losses for 2.6 million people who are expected to fall into poverty.

Providing the most vulnerable with a basic income of $5.50 per day would cost $430 million a month, UNDP said.

Ukraines neighbours who have struggled to cope with the more than three million refugeescreatedalso need help, the UN agency said.

To that end, UNDP is already working with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on resilience and development measures for those displaced by the violence, focusing on support to refugees and host communities through income generation and employment.

Latestconfirmed civilian casualty figuresfrom the UN rights office, OHCHR, note that since the Russias all-out o against Ukraine started on 24 February, there have been 1,834 civilian casualties in the country - 691 killed and 1,143 injured. The actual figures hampered by an inability to confirm numbers due to the fighting - are likely to be much higher, UN agencies warn.

Seven girls and 11 boys were among the dead, who also included 135 men and 99 women; a further 30 children and 409 adults also died, but their sex has not been established.

In eastern Ukraines Donetsk and Luhansk regions, there have been 751 casualties (173 killed and 578 injured), and in Government-controlled territory, 582 casualties (134 killed and 448 injured).

In territory controlled by the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, beyond the contact line, the UN rights office has recorded 169 casualties (39 killed and 130 injured).

In other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions), which were under Government control when the casualties occurred, there have been 1,083 recorded victims (518 killed and 565 injured) up to 14 March.

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Ukraine war: $100 billion in infrastructure damage, and counting - UN News

Every war brings surprises, but what is most striking about Vladimir Putins war against Ukraine and indirectly against the whole democratic West is how many of the bad surprises, so far, have been for Putin and how many of the good surprises have been for Ukraine and its allies around the world.

How so? Well, I am pretty sure that when Putin was plotting this war, he was assuming that by three weeks into it hed be giving a victory speech at the Ukrainian Parliament, welcoming it back into the bosom of Mother Russia. He probably also assumed that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine would be in exile in a Polish Airbnb, Russian troops would still be removing all the flowers from their tanks thrown by welcoming Ukrainians, and Putin and President Xi Jinping of China would be high-fiving each other for having shown NATO and Sleepy Joe whos going to set the rules of the international system.

Instead, Ukrainians have given Russians a tutorial on fighting and dying for freedom and self-determination. Putin appears locked into his own germ-free isolation chamber, probably worrying that any Russian military officer who comes near may pull a gun on him. Zelensky will be addressing the U.S. Congress virtually. And, rather than globalization being over, individuals all over the world are using global networks to monitor and influence the war in totally unexpected ways. With a few clicks theyre sending money to support Ukrainians and with a few more keystrokes telling everyone from McDonalds to Goldman Sachs that they must withdraw from Russia until Russian soldiers withdraw from Ukraine.

Heres another surprise few saw coming especially China and Russia. China relied on its own vaccines to fight Covid-19, along with a policy of zero tolerance and immediate quarantine to prevent spread of the coronavirus. Alas, the Chinese vaccines seem to be less effective than other Covid vaccines. And because Chinas quarantine strategy has left it with little immunity from prior infections, the virus is now spreading like wildfire there. As The Times reported Tuesday: Tens of millions of residents in Chinese provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are under lockdown amid an outbreak of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Travel has been cut off between cities, production lines have stopped and malls have been closed.

What is that doing? Its killing demand for, and tanking the price of, crude oil which, after approaching $130 a barrel because of the war in Ukraine, fell below $100 on Tuesday. And what country desperately needs high oil prices because it has so little else to sell to the world to fund its war? Putins Russia. So, Chinas Covid strategy is hampering Putins oil price strategy probably hurting him as much as anything the U.S. is doing. Were all still a lot more connected than we might think.

Now that weve passed the opening phase of this war, the surprises just keep on coming. For me, the three biggest are the extraordinary acts of cruelty, courage and kindness that this war is revealing and inspiring.

I never had any illusions that once Putin launched this war, hed stop short of doing anything to make sure that he could claim to be the winner. Nevertheless, it is stunning to watch how quickly he has tied himself into knots. In the space of three weeks, Putin has gone from saying that he came to liberate Ukraine from its Nazi leadership and bring Kyiv back to its natural home with Russia to crushing its cities and indiscriminately shelling its civilians to break their resistance to his will.

How does a leader go from one day saying Ukraine and its people are integral parts of the soul and fabric of Russia with shared languages, culture and religion to, when rebuffed, immediately pivoting toward turning the place to rubble without any explanation to Ukrainians, the world or his own people?

Its the kind of vicious madness that you see from a spurned lover or in an honor killing. And its shocking and petrifying to see it manifested by the leader of a superpower with some 6,000 nuclear warheads. There is something about this guy that portends more ominous surprises.

I am always amazed by the courage that seemingly average people manifest in war in this case, not only by Ukrainians, but also by Russians who refuse to buy Putins lies, knowing that he is turning them into a pariah nation. So I marvel at the breathtaking courage demonstrated on Monday evening by Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee at Russias Channel 1, a state-run television channel, who burst into a live broadcast of Russias most-watched news show, yelling, Stop the war! and holding up a sign behind the anchorwoman saying, Theyre lying to you here. She was interrogated and, for the moment, released probably because Putin feared making her into a martyr.

Marina Ovsyannikova remember her name. She dared to tell the czar that he had no clothes. What courage.

And finally, wars also reveal extraordinary acts of kindness. In this war, some came spontaneously and by leveraging a platform in ways that no one expected the room-sharing site Airbnb. Executives at Airbnb say they basically woke up in early March to discover that members of their community were spontaneously using their platform in a novel new way transforming its booking technology into a homemade, people-to-people, foreign aid system.

In about the last two weeks, according to the company, people from 165 countries have booked more than 430,000 nights at Ukrainian homes on Airbnb with no intention of using the rooms but simply in order to donate money to these Ukrainian hosts, most of whom they had never even heard of. Airbnb has temporarily waived all guest and host fees for bookings in Ukraine, so those reservations translated into $17 million going directly to the hosts. Guests from the U.S., Britain and Canada are the biggest bookers. Australia, Germany and several other European countries round out the top 10.

In addition, as of Sunday, about 36,000 people from 160 countries signed up through Airbnbs nonprofit affiliate, Airbnb.org, to welcome refugees fleeing Ukraine to their homes.

There is no way that Americas giant Agency for International Development, USAID, could have such an impact so fast.

Many of the Ukrainian hosts who have received these booking-donations have written back to the donors, forging new friendships and enabling foreigners to understand the impact of this war much more deeply. There is nothing like personally communicating with people in Ukraine who are hiding in their basement, while you are explaining why you are happy to rent that basement but never use it. It creates a community of kindness that alone cannot defeat Putins tanks, but it can help buttress those determined to resist them by reminding them that they are not alone Putin is.

I do not find any of this surprising. I have always argued that globalization is not just about trade. It is about the ability for countries, companies and now, increasingly, individuals to connect and act globally. Human beings are hard-wired to want to connect, and the hard-wiring of todays world is making it easier and cheaper for them to do so every day.

All that said, what makes the pleasant surprises in this war so surprising is that they were surprises to the people who were responsible for them. Just one caution, though. There will be more surprises and they wont all be pleasant.

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Opinion | In Putins War on Ukraine, Expect the Unexpected - The New York Times

Nevertheless, Svitlana was set on staying in Kyivat least she was until Russian forces began firing Grad rockets at seemingly random apartment blocks, a terror tactic she experienced in Luhansk. Its a matter of principle, she said. I simply dont want to live under the rule of occupiers. I did not invite them here. I dont need them to save me. I asked if she and her daughter managed to find any small moments of pleasure these days. Were happy when we hear about new sanctions and killed Russian soldiers, she said.

One day in Kyiv, I visited a donation center set up for the Ukrainian Army in a warren of rooms attached to the national military hospital. Boots, jackets, canned fruit, instant noodles, toilet paper, and medical supplies teetered in towering stacks. Every few minutes, someone came by to drop off more goods. They were accepted by Yulia Nizhnik-Zaichenko, who trained as a makeup artist before organizing aid supplies in the early days of the Donbas war. Back then, she had stood near the checkout counters of grocery stores, asking those in line to donate food and other supplies to be sent to the front. The air of improvisation and solidarity remained. We can barely keep up, she told me. Accept, give, accept, give, accept, giveand sometimes hide in the basement when the sirens go off.

A few minutes later, we heard the unmistakable warning of an air raid. Volunteers who had been sorting supplies hastened inside and closed the steel door. I sat on a couch next to Nizhnik-Zaichenko, listening to the muffled booms. Of course this is scary, she said. During the Donbas war, we didnt have to worry about missiles or heavy artillery reaching the city. She could finish her volunteer work and go home for a shower and a quiet nights sleep. Now there is no such peaceful place, she said. She felt Kyiv emptying out. The scariest thing to imagine is Russian rule in Kyiv, making us submit to them as if were just another region in the Russian Federation. Thats the only thing that could make me consider leavingif I manage to survive, of course.

Putin, after more than twenty years in power, seems to have committed a grave error of projection. The Russian state he has built is a vertical machine, distant from those it rules, and responsive to those at the top. Ukraine is home to a messy, vibrant society, with years of experience in horizontal organization. I found myself mystified, as did just about anyone I spoke to in Kyiv, about what Putin thought would happen even if he seized the capital and unseated Zelensky. Did he expect people to just go along with it?

The sense of purpose and solidarity among Ukrainians was in sharp contrast to the apparently demoralized state of many of the Russian soldiers sent into the fight. From interrogations of those who had been captured, a common theme emerged; namely, none of their commanding officers bothered to explain the purpose of their mission. Perhaps because no one had told them, either. Reports surfaced of Russian soldiers abandoning their tanks and armored vehicles and walking into the woods. At a press conference in Kyiv, a man described as a captured Russian officer, addressing the Ukrainian people, said, If you can find it in yourself to forgive us, please do. If not, God, well, well accept that, as we should.

Billboards around Kyiv castigated the Russian troops. Russian soldier, stop! How can you look your children in the eye! one read. Another admonished, Dont take a life on behalf of Putin! Return home with a clean conscience. Some were still more blunt: Russian soldier, go fuck yourself! Though addressed to the invading forces, the taglines seemed to boost morale among the Ukrainians themselves. The billboards were also a testament to the fratricidal nature of the war. In land invasions, the aggressor rarely shares a language, not to mention a culture and a history, with the defending side.

As the days wore on, soldiers guarding the checkpoints became less jittery. Shops were restocked with food, and the lines shrank considerably. The streets were cleaned; even trash pickup started again. Andrii Hrushchynskyi, the head of Kyivspetstrans, the firm responsible for collecting seventy per cent of the citys refuse, told me that sixteen of the companys thirty trucks were in service. (Several of the others were positioned as roadblocks at major entrances to the city.) His main problem was losing employees to the Army or the Territorial Defense Forces. My guys want to rush into battle, Hrushchynskyi said. I tell them that anyone can stand at a checkpoint with a gun, but collecting trash isnt for everybody.

Later that day, I stopped by Dubler, a stylish caf co-owned by a local architect named Slava Balbek. It had been closed for days, but I found a dozen young people seated around a long wooden table finishing a late breakfast. Balbek was conducting a planning meeting with volunteers. He had turned the caf into a nonprofit kitchen and delivery hub, sending meals to Territorial Defense units, hospitals, and anyone else left behind. I went straightaway to my local military-recruitment depot, but they told me they were already fullin the first ten days of the war, a hundred thousand people reportedly enlisted in the volunteer forcesso I thought, O.K., how else can I be helpful, Balbek, who is thirty-eight, and an amateur triathlete, told me. Im a good trouble-shooter, and if you leave out the particular horrors of war, this is basically organizational work. You need strong nerves and cold reason.

Balbek receives calls all the time: a restaurant owner phoned to say he had three hundred kilograms of food to donate if someone could pick it up; another contact was able to provide thousands of plastic takeout containers. Balbek and his team are now delivering ten thousand meals a day. In any organization, the most important thing is a shared idea, he said. And if nothing else we have thata common enemy and a need to help defeat it.

A crude military logic underpinned Putins decision to invade. He and the paranoid coterie of security officials around him believed that Ukraine had become the instrument of an ever-expanding West. Even if Ukraine didnt formally join NATO, it was receiving weapons and military training from NATO countries. With time, perhaps this support could amount to a kind of backdoor NATO membership. If Putin saw U.S. missile-defense systems in Poland and Romania as a danger, the prospect of them in Ukraine may have felt existential. Better to strike while Russia retained the military advantage, and use that force to refashion Ukraines politicsand foreign policyto accord with his vision of Russias security interests.

But there was also an element of historical messianism in Putins thinking, a pseudo-philosophical strain that ran far deeper than concerns over Western armaments. In July, he published a six-thousand-word treatise in which he proclaimed Russians and Ukrainians to be one people, but with a clear hierarchy: Ukraines rightful place was under the protection and imperial care of Russia, not led astraypolitically, militarily, culturallyby the West. I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia, he wrote. Only by acting now to rejoin the two peoples, as they were meant to be, could Putin preventUkraine from becoming irreparably European or even, for that matter, Ukrainian. Because once that happened it would be too late: Russia would indeed be occupying a foreign land.

The indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian cities, unsurprisingly, achieved the opposite effect. Residential districts in Kharkiv were hit with cluster munitions, killing people as they walked home from the grocery store. In Chernihiv, a Russian plane dropped a series of unguided aerial bombsincluding one that weighed an estimated thousand poundskilling at least forty-seven. On March 9th, a Russian air strike in Mariupol, a city with a predominantly Russian-speaking population, demolished a hospitals maternity ward, leaving pregnant women to scramble out of the burnt wreckage. Its brutal, Zagorodnyuk said. They want to create panic and terror, to demoralize the population and break their will to fight. But that wont work with Ukrainians.

The question, then, is how much longer Putin can continue the campaign. For all the inefficiencies and outright bumbling of the first two weeks, Russia, with an annual military budget more than seven times larger than Ukraines, enjoys a formidable advantage in terms of brute military might. Ukraine, for its part, has lost ground in the south and east of the country, but managed to hold off the bulk of Russias invasion force. It has relied on a combination of battle-hardened troops who have been fighting since 2014, antitank and anti-aircraft missiles supplied by the West, and, perhaps no less important, the moral determination to expel an invading force.

The spirit of the countrys resistance has been exemplified by its President. Before the war began, Zelensky was struggling. His inability to uproot corruption and government inefficiency, and his failure to resolve the conflict in the east, had eroded his popularity. But once the war began he called on his experience as an actor, revealed a deft feel for the national psyche, and attained almost mythic status. In a series of short, defiant speeches that quickly went viral on social media, he appeared at once approachableunshaven, in olive-green T-shirts and warmup jackets, carrying his own chair into a press conferenceand coolly heroic. With Russia evidently hunting him down (there had reportedly been three foiled assassination attempts on him), his presence in the capital felt imbued with bravery, the opposite of what Putin likely expected.

One popular video began with the camera looking out a window on a nighttime scene in Kyiv. Zelensky came into the frame, walking down a hallway toward his office in the Presidential suite, evidence that he was still in Kyiv, still at work. Im not hiding, and Im not afraid of anyone, he said. The next morning, he stepped outside to enjoy a moment of early spring: Everything is fine. We will overcome. As the Russian campaign turned more grim, so did Zelenskys mood. We will find every bastard who shot at our cities, our people, who bombed our land, who launched rockets, he said, on March 6th. There will be no quiet place on earth for you. Except for the grave.

Read the original:
What the Russian Invasion Has Done to Ukraine - The New Yorker

Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has acknowledged that Ukraine will not become a Nato member, in a significant concession on a day when Kyiv was pounded by Russian shells and missiles and the invading force tightened its grip on the capital.

At least five people were killed in the latest artillery barrage on Kyiv, prompting its city hall to impose a 35-hour curfew from Tuesday night amid further signs that the focus of the Russian campaign has shifted to the destruction of residential areas and civilian infrastructure.

Zelenskiy made his remarks about Nato while addressing leaders from the new Joint Expeditionary Force, a UK-led initiative bringing together 10 north Atlantic countries to create a capability for responding rapidly to crises.

It is clear that Ukraine is not a member of Nato; we understand this, the Ukrainian president said. For years we heard about the apparently open door, but have already also heard that we will not enter there, and these are truths and must be acknowledged.

One of Vladimir Putins demands before unleashing his offensive on Ukraine was that its membership of Nato should be ruled out indefinitely. However, the size of the invasion force Putin amassed and his own justifications for the attack, have been widely seen as evidence he would have settled for nothing less than regime change and Russias unchallenged dominance of its smaller neighbour.

The White House announced on Tuesday that Joe Biden would travel to Europe next week to attend an extraordinary Nato summit on 24 March to discuss ongoing deterrence and defence efforts in the face of the Russian invasion, and also join a scheduled European Council summit. There were reports Biden would also visit eastern Europe on the same trip.

As the Polish, Czech and Slovenian prime ministers arrived by train in the embattled city on Tuesday in a symbolic show of European solidarity, Kyivs mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said it faced a difficult and dangerous moment.

After repeated bombardments and almost encircled by Russian forces, about half of Kyivs 3.5 million pre-war residents have fled, officials have said, with many of those who remain spending their nights sheltering in underground stations.

Klitschko promised it would not surrender. The capital is the heart of Ukraine, and it will be defended, he said. Kyiv, which is currently the symbol and the forward operating base of Europes freedom and security, will not be given up by us.

The series of four heavy pre-dawn explosions rocked residential districts of Kyiv on Tuesday, hours before talks between Ukraine and Russia were set to resume. Streets have been turned into a mush of steel and concrete, said the head of the capital region, Oleksiy Kuleba. People have been hiding for weeks in basements.

One strike on Kyiv hit a 16-storey housing block, where fire raged and smoke billowed from the shattered skeleton of the building, as emergency services and stunned locals navigated an obstacle course of glass, metal and other debris littering the road.

Residents in Kyivs northern Podil district, which is close to Russian positions, told the Guardian that they had heard an increase in shelling between the two sides over the past two days.

On Tuesday morning Daria Kloichko came home to her flat in north Kyiv city, which was all but destroyed by a rocket at 5am. Kloichkos flat was strewn with glass and little was salvageable. There was hardly a flat in the block untouched by the attack.

A refugee from the 2014 war in eastern Ukraine against Russian proxy forces, she and her husband hugged and cried as they took pictures off the wall - the only objects which somehow survived the attack.

Luckily, we werent here, Kloichko said with a tear-stained face.

Another man, Andriy, who lived in the block but declined to give his surname, said the blast somehow jammed the door to his childs bedroom and he had to break the door down.

In the east, the airport in Dnipro also sustained massive damage overnight, while Russian forces launched more than 60 strikes on Ukraines second-largest city, Kharkiv, according to the regional administration chief, Oleh Sinehubov. The strikes hit the citys historic centre, including the main marketplace.

The UN said that nearly 1.4 million children almost one every second had left Ukraine since the invasion began on 24 February. According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), 3,000,381 people have now fled Russias onslaught in what NGOs have called Europes biggest refugee crisis since the second world war.

The UNHCR expects the refugee total to reach 4 million. The number of people displaced within Ukraine is estimated at 1.85 million, the UN said last week, warning that number could rise to nearly 7 million in coming months.

Ukraine was fighting for life, Zelenskiy said. We are fighting against tanks, planes and mortars that Russia is using to destroy us. But Russia is also destroying itself. Every shot against Ukraine, this is a step that Russia takes to destroy itself, to self-isolate everybody leaves Russia now, all who can think.

He warned that Russias war machine would inevitably target more western countries if it was not stopped by coordinated international action. We can stop Russia, he said. We can stop the killing of people. Else they will also come to you.

Civilian evacuations from some of Ukraines hardest-hit cities continued on Tuesday. More than 100 buses carrying several thousand civilians left the besieged city of Sumy in north-east Ukraine in a safe passage operation, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

Authorities in the devastated southern port of Mariupol said 2,000 civilian vehicles had also left the city using a 260km (160-mile) humanitarian corridor to the Ukraine-held city of Zaporizhzhia.

Another 2,000 cars were waiting to leave Mariupol which has been under heavy bombardment for more than two weeks and is largely without power, heating or water. But Ukraines deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a convoy with supplies for Mariupol was stuck outside the city.

Russian forces were also reported to have taken hostage patients and medical staff at one of the citys hospitals. Deputy mayor Sergei Orlov said Russian troops had captured our biggest hospital ... We received information there are 400 people there.

Peace talks between the two sides resumed on Tuesday, meanwhile, with Zelenskiy sounding cautiously optimistic. The Russians had begun to understand they will not achieve anything by war, he said, adding that Mondays round was pretty good but lets see. They will continue.

While previous talks focused on humanitarian issues, the latest aim to achieve a ceasefire, secure Russian troop withdrawals and establish security guarantees for Ukraine, Kyiv has said. The Russian delegate, Leonid Slutsky, suggested draft agreements may not be far off.

Russia again claimed on Tuesday, without evidence, that US advisers in Ukraine were helping Kyiv develop biological and nuclear weapons. The secretary of Russias security council, Nikolai Patrushev, said foreign consultants in Ukraine represented a new threat to Russias security and were potentially raising the risk of nuclear war.

The US has categorically denied Russian accusations that Washington was operating biowarfare labs in Ukraine, calling the claims laughable and suggesting Moscow may be laying the groundwork to use a chemical or biological weapon itself.

View original post here:
Ukraine will not join Nato, says Zelenskiy, as shelling of Kyiv continues - The Guardian

Today, Ukraine is the site of a violent struggle between an embattled democracy and a repressive, irredentist, authoritarian regime bent on subduing it. Tomorrow, Taiwan could be the site of a similar clash. Oriana Skylar Mastro is likely correct inarguingthat Russias assault on Ukraine does not presage a Chinese attack on Taiwan. But applying lessons from the current crisis could nonetheless be critical for defending Taiwan in the future.

While the Ukraine invasion is still in its early days, it has already demonstrated how the United States and its allies can prevent a Chinese invasion from becoming the worlds next big crisis. Rather than treat a Chinese victory as inevitable, Washington should begin preparing in peacetime to ensure a rapid, coordinated military and economic response to any potential attack. Policymakers in allied states around the region should also prepare for a dramatic refugee crisis, exacerbated by Taiwans geography. To strengthen these efforts, America and its allies can target intelligence collection to better assess Beijings intentions while also trying to anticipate the unexpected ways an invasion could reshape the political landscape from Canberra to Tokyo.

No Surprises

Months prior to its invasion,satellite imageryshowed that Russia was building up its forces on Ukraines border. While many had hoped that Putin would avoid conflict, the West should have seen his buildup as a sign of intent to invade. If China chooses to invade Taiwan, it will likely have to prepare on a scale that will be impossible to conceal. In addition to massing missiles, the Chinese military would likely need to assemble an amphibious armada, aircraft, paratroopers and infantry, and logistical support capabilitiesthat could be incredibly challenging to hide. But these preparations could either signal the start of a very large exercise or an assault. As a result, maintaining a close watch on military movements will be critical.Distinguishing between efforts geared toward an exercise versus an invasion will be difficult. There are arguably certain logistical preparations that China would conduct for an invasion but not a large-scale exercise, such as amassing greater amounts of food, fuel, and ammunition and assembling a large number of field hospitals. Similarly, it may be the case that for an invasion, some units that rarely participate in East China Sea exercises would be called up and moved east. This suggests that active and real-time intelligence could be the critical factor in alerting the world to an invasion.

The more allies monitor Chinese movements during future exercises, the better they will be able to judge what could potentially be invasion preparations. Taiwan should continue to devote its satellites and other advanced intelligence collection capabilities to this effort while the United States and other like-minded countries shouldfosterrobust intelligence links with Taiwan toward this end. By doing so, they can ensure that critical information collected by foreign sources is shared widely to prevent any surprise attacks and to assist with targeting cues in wartime. By the time it becomes apparent that an exercise is a ruse for an invasion, it will be difficult to assemble a credible deterrent in the region. Thus, it would benefit the United States and its allies to maintain a robust force posture, including logistical and sustainment support, to make clear that China will not be able to achieve its goals by force, or will at least incur enormous costs in doing so.

Prepare for a Struggle

It is still too early to draw definitive conclusions, but it has been striking how well the Ukrainians have defended themselves. Facing aquantitively larger and better equippedRussian military, Ukrainian forces have proven stubbornly resistant despiteassessmentsthat they would be unable to stop Russias rapid movement. This underestimation of the Ukrainians capability and will to fight haddisastrous consequencesfor Russia. The samehubriscould bedevil a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. As in Ukraine, national identity could play a factor. An overwhelming number of people in Taiwan see themselves asTaiwanese, distinct from mainland China, which can serve as a powerful motivation to fight. Training these people into some sort of territorial defense force could help make them lethal. Tactically, in advancing from Taiwans western shore to Taipei, an invasion force could encounter numerousinsurgentsready to set ambushes and take out vehicles with the types of anti-tank weapons being used in Ukraine. Rather than engage the Peoples Liberation Army force-on-force, Taiwan would be better positioned to pursue an asymmetric guerilla war in whichciviliansand military forcesfight from urban areas, where they could hide and restock supplies. Similarly, the same forces could use guerrilla tactics to defend key choke points like bridges or valleys while leveraging mountains or rivers as obstacles. The more effectively teams of citizens and soldiers work together, the more of a challenge the Chinese forces will face. In Ukraine, Russia is already facing these challenges, including resupply issues. The longer Ukrainians hold out, the more challenges Russia will face. The same would be true for China, made worse by the fact that any resupplies would have to be brought from the mainland across the Taiwan Strait.

Just as defenders should not be underestimated, aggressors should not be overestimated. Russiahas a large military but proved unable to force Kyivs quick capitulation. There is still a lot the West does not know aboutPutins operational planand it is unclear which of his generals assumptions regarding force readiness and training proved false. Ukraine showed that even a prepared invasion, telegraphed in advance, can go off-track quickly. Chinas military, like, Russias, is sometimes viewed as a 10-foot giant. But if Russian forces, with recent operational experience in Chechnya and Syria, can struggle, why should we be confident the Peoples Liberation Army will be successful in what would be its first military operation since its border war with Vietnam in 1979? China may choose a more aggressive and lethal approach from the outset in order ensure victory at any cost, but there is stillnothing inevitableabout a Chinese conquest of Taiwan.

Launching a successful large-scale amphibious invasion across a maritime straitwould require a lot of things to go right, and thus involves a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong. Whether it be rough waters across 100 miles of strait, a botched amphibious landing, stretched supply lines, or battlefield mistakes, the Peoples Liberation Army has opportunities for tactical failures that could result in operational catastrophes. The more that other countries help Taiwan, the more opportunities there will be for such catastrophes. And the more these allies prepare and coordinate their force postures and capabilities in peacetime, the more effective their help will be.

Taiwan could best prepare for this operation by ensuring the right kind ofdefense strategy and capabilities. According to Drew Thompson, this means systems that are short-range and defensive, able to survive an initial bombardment from a larger adversary, and suitable for deployment close to home in defense of the island should it come under blockade or attack. Knowing that an invasion would come largely by sea, a premium could be placed on sea mines and anti-ship cruise missiles. Similarly, in addition to successfully injecting paratroopers into Taiwan, air superiority couldbecritical for any Chinese amphibious invasion to succeed. This would put a premium on anti-air capabilities. Finally, for everything, passive-defense measures and lots and lots of munitions may be needed. As Michael Hunzeker wrote in War on the Rocks last year, Taiwan and the United States should be focusing on stockpiling large numbersof small and cheap asymmetric capabilities, things like coastal defense cruise missiles, short-range mobile air defenses, naval mines, and drones.

Allied countries have been explicit that they would not defend Ukraine given that it is not a NATO member. Instead, European countries have been forthcoming with military assistance meant to bolster Ukraines defense, with the United Kingdom,France, theNetherlands, and evenGermany, among others, providing Ukraine with a variety of weapons. Many European countries may choose todo the same thing if Taiwan is attacked: they do not even formally recognize it, and it is geographically far away. These facts could lead to a situation in which allied states, including some of the European nations that had started to make forays into the Indo-Pacific operationally such as France, the United Kingdom, or Germany may be less inclined to provide operational support to Taiwan in a crisis. Were they to still provide military assistance to Taiwan, such as anti-air missiles, this may be exponentially more difficult because of the distance and the fact that Taiwan is an island. Difficulties will only increase if China establishes air superiority and a maritime quarantine of Taiwan, enabling Chinese forces to intercept or prevent such aid from arriving. As a result, this assistance would be more effective before a war starts. Taiwan should be encouraged to stockpile orprocure critical capabilities in peacetime.

A Quick and Coordinated Economic Response

Despite some initial disagreements over things like military aid or exclusion fromSWIFT, the United States helped to rapidly coordinate an international coalition to punish Russia diplomatically, economically, and financially. It also led the way onproviding military assistanceto Ukraine. A similarly quick and unified effort would be necessary if Taiwan were attacked. While it is possible the United States, along withJapanandAustralia, wouldintervene to defend Taiwan either directly or indirectly, it is likely that other countries would find it difficult to do so. Yet these countries could still be part of a coordinated international response to punish Beijing.

As the Ukraine crisis demonstrates, war is conducted ontwo battlefields: one between militaries and one among nations, banks, companies, and individuals. WhileRussia appears to be increasing its military advantage over Ukraine, Western allies are destroying Russia through financial sanctions and other types of economic penalties.Becauseof Chinas global trade andoverseas investments, targeted, coordinated sanctions could drastically hurt the Chinese Communist Party, which is heavily involvedin the economy.Of course, Chinas larger economy and greater integration with the world economy means that such steps might have a larger impact on some allied economies than the sanctions on Russia have had. In other words, the consequences for the global economy could be massive far worse than what we have seen with Russia.

That said, Western countries should be prepared to take many of the same steps they have taken against Russia. These could include cutting off Chinese banks from SWIFT, sanctions on Chinese goods, and secondary sanctions on countries willing to trade with China. In addition, Western countries could ban Chinese planes from their airspace and ships from their ports, forcing Chinese citizens to remain locked in China. For a globally integrated economy like Chinas, this kind of isolation would dry up international trade and possibly collapse the renminbi, leading to significant economic contraction. The damage done by government sanctions could be further compounded by corporate actions. If global corporations discarded their joint ventures in Chinese companies, ended their business relationships with China, or withheld Western products, the air would be sucked out of the Chinese economy. While none of this is likely to cause China to cease an attack on Taiwan, the pain brought to bear on the government could undermine its legitimacy and authority. As with military aid, Taiwans allies and partners should coordinate their economic response in advance to ensure they can act as quickly and effectively as possible.

A Greater Humanitarian Challenge

As of 2020, Ukraines population was approximately44 million people. The website for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugeessays that almost three million refugeeshaveleft Ukraine for neighboring countries suchPoland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, and Slovakia.Millions moreare stranded inside the country. There are already growing concerns that the situation is leading to ahumanitarian crisis. ButUkraine is surrounded by land,enablingthose refugeeswho can manage it to escape by train, car, or foot. This is not the case for Taiwan. As of January, the population of Taiwan was approximately23 million people. Should conflict occur, where will these people go? The Philippines and Japan are too far by boat. According to the Ministry of the Interior National Immigration Agency, as of September 2021 there were also approximately 765,000 foreigners on the island. Noncombatant evacuation operations would pose an extra challenge, as there are no good options for getting any of these people off Taiwan during a conflict. And in addition to the large number of people who would want out, there is also the difficulty of getting supplies in. If all Taiwan becomes an active war zone, delivering humanitarian assistance will be more dangerous as well.

Understanding the possible massive scale of a humanitarian crisis, the United States and Taiwan should focus on stockpiling critical resources and relief items. As the most capable ally that is closest to Taiwan, Japan would play a particularly important role. The United States, Japan, and Taiwan should begin discussions in peacetime about how Japan can best receivecivilian refugees during a conflict. This would include identifying likely Japanese air- and seaports that could handle large influxes of people and pre-positioning critical suppliesthere.

There Will Be Unintended Consequences

While trying to prevent surprises, policymakers should recognize that there will still be unintended consequences. Russias war has led to dizzying changes that even a month ago seemed impossible.Belarus amended its constitution to allow it to host nuclear weapons.Finland and Swedenhave signaled their interest in joining NATO. AndGermanyhas taken unprecedented steps to increase its defense spending and arm Ukraine.

In response to a Chinese onslaught against Taiwan, regional countriesmight make similar changes. For example,a Chinese attack could coalesce U.S. partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific. This could create a quasi-alliance between Japan and Australia and also push several states like the Philippines, Thailand, or Vietnam which have been trying to balance between Washington and Beijing closer to the United States. Even South Korea may decide that the price of trying to play nice with China is no longer advantageous.

As with Germany, a conflict could force Japan to rethink aspects of its strategic approach to the world. Already, the Ukraine crisis has caused Tokyo to take unprecedented steps to brace for the fallout of Russias actions. A Taiwanconflict could lead Tokyo to accept its first combat role since WWII and possibly to make rapid changes in its defense policies. Political leaders might prove willing to host U.S. ground-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles or a U.S. Army Multi-Domain Task Force. Given recent chatter among some in Japans political elite on the need for anuclear-sharing arrangementwith the United States, there is always a possibility that a war with China could push Japan into a position where it feels a nuclear deterrent is necessary.

Chinese leaders are learning from the conflict in Ukraine, not just by observing Russias actions, but also the Wests response. The United States, Taiwan, and other like-minded partners should be learning too. By doing so, they can help ensure that Beijing comes away from the current crisis with a greater appreciation of the risks that attacking Taiwan would entail.

Jeffrey W. Hornung is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

Image: President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

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Ukraine's Lessons for Taiwan - War on the Rocks