For weeks headlines about what’s going down at the Russia-Ukraine border have become more serious and scary. Some experts and commentators say Russian President Vladimir Putin is primed to start a war; he says Russia is simply protecting itself. Peace talks between Russia and all the NATO countries (more on that below) have not succeeded. There is a lot going on… If you’ve been trying to get your head around the news reporting on this and figure out how real the threat of war in the region really is, read on for the background context.
UPDATE: 24 February 2022. Putin has launched a military attack on Ukraine, and appears to have begun an invasion. There is not a lot of clarity of exactly what and where attacks are taking place. It comes one day after Putin announced that he considers the Donbas region (more on that below) as ‘independent’ from Ukraine. It’s still unclear if Russia will use this to claim more of Ukraine, or focus on this one region.
History of the Russia-Ukraine conflict:
As always, this is not a comprehensive history. It’s a condensed look at the context that will help you understand current news on the tension between Russia and Ukraine, and why other countries are genuinely concerned about war. For these purposes, we’ll start in 1991…
1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The fall of the Soviet Union is a legitimate historical event in its own right. To keep this Explainer concise, you’ll need to know that Ukraine became an independent country in 1991, along with many others. However, Ukraine and Russia have maintained a close political relationship, not only because they share a border.
2013-2014 Ukrainian Revolution: Ukrainians’ growing dissatisfaction with their political leaders erupted in a wave of big protests, ultimately resulting in overthrowing the government and President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. This is concerning to the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin, but also presents an opportunity.
February 2014 Russia Annexes Crimea: Crimea is a peninsula that juts into the Black Sea from Ukraine (remember, access to seas and ports is very important in global politics). Although Crimea was technically part of Ukraine, it was allowed to remain independent and self-governing. In February 2014, immediately after the revolution, the Russian military infiltrated Crimea and installed a Russian government. The population of Crimea was already mostly Russian, and so Putin framed the move as protecting the interests of those people and ‘reclaiming’ land that belonged to Russia. The moved was internationally condemned, but no one could really do anything about it.
2014 Russo-Ukrainian War Begins: All the while, protests and unrest directed at the government continued in Ukraine. Under the guise of ‘protecting’ their territories from this unrest, Russia continues to build its military presence at the borders – now that it has Crimea, it’s two borders, not one.
But instead of just holding those borders, Russia continues to advance into Ukraine. This prompts Ukraine to launch an ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ to fight back and the two groups are now engaged in war. Pro-Russian rebels take control of Ukraine’s Donbas region (containing two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk), in addition to Crimea. The conflict has continued to slowly escalate to the current day. Many attempts to implement ceasefires (at least eight since 2018) have failed.
2021 NATO Involvement: The intensity of this war increased again when NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a military alliance of 30 countries led by the US) begins running military training exercises in specific areas across Europe in March 2021. Several of these were taking place in Ukraine – the country has been attempting to join NATO since the early 2000s.
NATO was formed post-WWII to protect against potential new attacks from Germany or the Soviet Union, which is why Russia has always been opposed to NATO’s existence – it pushes back against the expansion of Russian power. Which is why Russia is dead against Ukraine joining NATO – one-by-one, many of the Eastern European countries closest to Russia have joined the alliance. Only two border countries remain outside NATO, Ukraine and Belarus, providing the infamous ‘buffer zone’ between Russia and Western Europe.
December 2021 Russia’s NATO Proposal: To de-escalate the situation (from their POV) Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov put a proposal forward to the US. It asked them to sign a binding agreement to stop all NATO military activity in Eastern Europe (including Ukraine); block NATO from deploying in specific Eastern European countries (i.e.: Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and more); and prohibit any other former Soviet territories from joining NATO (i.e.: Ukraine). Essentially, they want NATO to back off and move away from Russia’s borders.
If the US refused to sign, or if Ukraine ever joined NATO, Russian state media claimed: “We will deploy missiles… we will hold a gun to America’s head. We have the military capability.”
The U.S. is planning sanctions against Putin’s inner circle if Russia moves on Ukraine. https://t.co/y24Evcr9JY
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 31, 2022
Which brings us to Russia-Ukraine tensions in 2022…
Russia continued to move troops and military equipment to its Ukraine border – there were reportedly around 100,000 troops sitting and waiting there by the beginning of February. The US and EU warned Putin that if he tries to invade Ukraine (anymore than Russia already has) they will impose economic sanctions. This is what happened at the initial outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014.
On 12 January 2022 all 30 NATO allies and Russia met in Belgium’s capital, Brussels, for a week-long meeting. Nothing was resolved – in fact, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said it might have actually made things worse.
The entire time, Russia denied it was planning any attack. In this version of events, Russia says the troops are to protect their own border from NATO, rather than threaten Ukraine’s.
But in late February, Putin announced he considered the Donbas region to be independent of Ukraine; one day later, he authorised a ‘military operation’ to ‘liberate’ people in Eastern Ukraine. Russian troops were moved in, making this an invasion.
What happens next? Will there be a war?
To be 100% clear, the US was never going to sign Russia’s proposal. It is so clearly a terrible arrangement and will create instability in Europe, which is something Putin has been accused of doing in many other ways.
If Russia does not back away from Ukraine, the U.S. says it will impose “the mother of all sanctions” on Putin. BBC has a helpful Explainer on the types of economic sanctions that could be used against Russia.
Editor’s Note: Even now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, what remains unclear is how far they will go. We’ve already moved far past what was originally anticipated in the below commentary when written on 1 Feb. A full-blown war may still not eventuate – Putin may claim the Donbas as Russian territory and leave it there. We’ve kept the below included in this piece for transparency, and because it still may be the reason why more does not eventuate.
For what it’s worth, we don’t think Russia will start a full-on war at this time because of what’s currently happening within the country. Like everywhere else in the world, Russia has suffered throughout the pandemic, which compounded the social and economic problems they already had. A major war against the US (and its allies) would be very expensive and likely unpopular with the Russian people.
On top of that, one of the main reasons Russia is trying to stop Ukraine aligning with ‘the West’ is because it could make Putin and his government look bad domestically. Putin does not want Russian citizens and residents to see their neighbours in Ukraine able to establish democracy, have a say and “realise the full potential of [their] economy”. If Ukraine is able to do it, the Russian people may want the same and begin pushing back even harder against Putin’s authoritarian regime.
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