ukraine. what & why?

A summary of the events in Ukraine

Written By Anonymous

Ukraine.

By December, more than a hundred thousand troops were in place on the Russian-Ukrainian border. In mid-December, Russia’s foreign ministry set a rule of demands askingtheUnitedStatesandNATO to cease any military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to prevent NATO’s expansion and its allegiancewithUkraine.

Earlier this year, the US intelligence officials warned that Russia may plan to invade, and in early February, the United States President Joe Biden ordered three thousand troops to deploy to Poland and Romania — countries aligned with NATO that border Ukraine. While Russia released a statement claiming to have reduced the number of troops, reports published an increase in these troops present at the border. In late February2022,theUnitedStates warnedthatRussiaintendedto invade Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin then ordered troops to Luhansk and Donetsk, regions in EasternUkrainepartlycontrolledby Russian-backed separatists, claiming this served a “peacekeeping” purpose. The US responded by imposing sanctions on these regions and the Nord Stream2gaspipelines.

On February 24th 2022, a UN Security Council meeting was organised to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine. Then, the invasion happened. Putin had declared a “special military operation” would take place to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine. Many believe the reason for this was that Russia wanted Ukraine to be considered a part of their country even though Ukraine is an independent country on its own. But minutes later after Putin’s announcement,itwasrecordedthat Ukraine was hit by missiles and airstrikes.Thisincludedthecapital

Kyiv, shortly followed by a large ground invasion from multiple directions. The fighting has caused over nine hundred civilian deaths and has pushed millions to flee Ukraine to neighbouring countries. Themajorityoftheserefugeeshave gone to Poland, a North Atlantic TreatyOrganisation(NATO)country where United States troops are assistingthem,forthemeantime.

Biden declared this attack “unprovoked and unjustified” and has since issued severe sanctions across Russia’s manufacturing industries. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is not recent and has been reportedly going on since August 2014. The Ukrainian Revolution was followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and due to Russia's backing for the separatist fighters of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in war, there have been more and more casualties causedbyconflictinthearea.