... If Russia limits its offensive to the east and south of Ukraine, a sovereign Ukrainian government will not stop fighting. It will enjoy reliable military and economic support from abroad and the backing of a united population. But if Russia pushes on to occupy much of the country and install a Kremlin-appointed puppet regime in Kyiv, a more protracted and thorny conflagration will begin. Putin will face a long, bloody insurgency that could spread across multiple borders, perhaps even reaching into Belarus to challenge Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s stalwart ally. Widening unrest could destabilize other countries in Russia’s orbit, such as Kazakhstan, and even spill into Russia itself...

... Any future insurgency will benefit from Ukraine’s geography. The country is bordered by four NATO states: Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Belarus, a Russian ally, is itself bordered by Poland on the west and another NATO member—Lithuania—on the north. These long borders offer the United States and NATO an enduring way to support Ukrainian resistance and a long-term insurgency and to stoke unrest in Belarus should the United States and its allies choose to covertly aid opposition to Lukashenko’s regime...

... As the United States learned in Vietnam and Afghanistan, an insurgency that has reliable supply lines, ample reserves of fighters, and sanctuary over the border can sustain itself indefinitely, sap an occupying army’s will to fight, and exhaust political support for the occupation at home. Russia would also have to think twice before trying to chase insurgents across the border into Poland, for instance, since such actions could trigger war with NATO...

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-02-25/coming-ukrainian-insurgency

... (British Minister) Mr Heappey disclosed that the Ministry of Defence was working on plans to support a resistance movement and a government in exile if Ukraine was finally overrun.

“That is a decision for the National Security Council to take but it is something that the Prime Minister has asked us in the Ministry of Defence to look at and plan for,” he told Sky News...

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/uk-send-more-arms-ukrainian-6724070

... “In the depths of the Cold War we were very prepared and there was a realisation an attack was a reality. We had hundreds of bunkers around the country. But fast forward to 2022 and a lot of the planning and infrastructure has gone into abeyance and crumbled...” As the threat of the Cold War receded, the UK's nuclear defence infrastructure was decommissioned: former nuclear bunkers have become museums and one in Wiltshire even ended up being used as a cannabis factory.

Underneath the Ministry of Defence on Whitehall sits Pindar, a several storeys deep complex that will house the UK’s government and military leaders in the event of a nuclear strike. There is also a command-and-control complex at RAF Corsham in Wiltshire as well as several others. “They probably need a bit of a dust off but they would be viable. I don’t have any insider information but there are probably a lot of civil servants running around at the moment making preparations,” says Mr de Bretton-Gordon...

... For civilians, however, it is likely that we will have to fend for ourselves. In the 1970s and 1980s the government devised a public information campaign called Protect and Survive, whose nadir was a chilling pamphlet delivered to all households detailing how to prepare for armageddon: from the construction of a fall out shelter to how you would be informed of a nuclear attack to what to do with any dead bodies (wrap them in polythene)...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/britain-must-dust-nuclear-defence-plans-warns-security-expert/

By Jonathan Steele

... The Russian president is a rational man with his own analysis of recent European history. Coming from a former Communist, his blaming of Lenin for giving excessive scope to local nationalism in drawing up the Soviet constitution is remarkable. Similarly, his criticism of the way national elites destroyed the Soviet Union in its final years is sharp. Does he want to turn the clock back? People often quote his statement “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. But it bears pointing out that he enlarged on it later, saying: “Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”

It is crucially important for those who might seek to end or ameliorate this crisis to first understand his mindset. What happened this week is that Putin lost his patience, and his temper. He is furious with the Ukraine government. He feels it repeatedly rejected the Minsk aagreement, which would give the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk substantial autonomy. He is angry with France and Germany, the co-signatories, and the United States, for not pressing Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to implement them. He is equally angry with the Americans for not taking on board Russia’s security concerns about Nato’s expansion and the deployment of offensive missiles close to Russia’s borders...

... Convinced that Nato will never reject Ukraine’s membership, Putin has now taken his own steps to block it. By invading Donetsk and Luhansk, he has created a “frozen conflict”, knowing the alliance cannot admit countries that don’t control all their borders. Frozen conflicts already cripple Georgia and Moldova, which are also split by pro-Russian statelets. Now Ukraine joins the list. There is speculation about what will happen next but from his standpoint, it is not actually necessary to send troops further into the country. He has already taken what he needs.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/23/putin-narrative-ukraine-master-key-crisis-nato-expansionism-frozen-conflict

Jonathan Steele is a former Moscow correspondent for the Guardian

BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) -- Taiwan is "not Ukraine" and has always been an inalienable part of China, China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday, as Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen called for the island to beef up vigilance on military activities in response to the crisis... Tsai says Taiwan is an independent state called the Republic of China, which remains Taiwan's official name.

All security and military units "must raise their surveillance and early warning of military developments around the Taiwan Strait," Tsai told a meeting of the working group on the Ukraine crisis set up by her National Security Council.

Taiwan and Ukraine are fundamentally different in terms of geostrategy, geography and international supply chains, she added, in details of the meeting provided by her office.

"But in the face of foreign forces intending to manipulate the situation in Ukraine and affect the morale of Taiwanese society, all government units must strengthen the prevention of cognitive warfare launched by foreign forces and local collaborators," it cited Tsai as saying...

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/China-says-Taiwan-is-not-Ukraine-as-island-raises-alert-level