RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE. POSSIBLE AND NECESSARY LESSONS TO LEARN FOR ROMANIA AND THE ROMANIAN ARMY

The author believes that the subject of this article could be of some interest to Romanian politicians (if they had the strength to detach themselves from their personal interests) and to active military personnel of all ranks, as well as to those in reserve or retirement. In the context of the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, through the Kremlin's use of the so-called "little green men", in fact GRU and FSB forces without insignia, an annexation through which the Russian Federation took full advantage of the acts of betrayal of some civilian and military officials from the Peninsula, it became increasingly clear to many Western analysts, politicians and career military personnel that Putin's Russia had taken a test, from which it understood that it could go further, perhaps as far as Lisbon (!?). The US and European countries had a lukewarm reaction to the unprovoked aggression and calmly overlooked the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. It would have been necessary and useful for the West (NATO, EU) to wake up, but until 24.02.2022, they did nothing, passively watching how Putin's regime becomes more and more insolent and aggressive. But then came the cold shower administered, with cynicism, by the oligarch-silovik team from the Kremlin. It was already too late! In this article I present some events and facts from the last year of the war (01.06.2024 - 05.06.2025) defined, mainly, by Russia's atrocious attacks on Ukraine's critical infrastructure and residential areas, by the deliberate destruction of apartment blocks, resulting in thousands of victims.