Traditional GK

Table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. Motivations for invading Ukraine
3. Historical context
4. Putin’s stance
5. Reasons behind Russia’s invasion in Ukraine
6. Possible solutions
7. Conclusion
8. FAQs

Introduction

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and has left the Ukrainian people in great ruin. Early in 2014, the post-Cold War situation in Eastern Europe came to an end as the Ukrainian crisis intensified. Since then, the area has been in turmoil, mostly due to Russia's requests that NATO stop expanding eastward. The two sides' main point of conflict was still Russia's annexation of Crimea, a region of Ukraine.
Therefore, Russia felt insecure as Ukraine's move toward the western camp would make it easier for the US to contain the communist nation. Russia therefore attacked Ukraine to stop such an event. Later, Russia confirms that its forces are leaving Ukraine and pledges to limit further aggressions and attacks exclusively in accordance with the conditions of the ceasefire negotiations. This article primarily attempts to provide an in-depth study of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and throw some insight on the western reaction to the whole situation.

Motivations for invading Ukraine

The largest threat to peace and security in post-Cold War Europe has been created by Russian escalation of the war in Ukraine. It is important to note, therefore, that Russia's vast list of complaints against Ukraine contributed to the war's escalation. The special military action against Ukraine was justified by Vladimir Putin's address, which he gave on February 21, 2022. Among the grievances were Ukraine's inclination towards the European Union (EU) and the post-Cold War era in Europe was shaped by the expansionist policies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In this way, the history of the Ukrainian crisis may be traced back to 1991, when hostilities first arose. Since that time, Ukraine has been impacted by Russian politicians, businesspeople, and oligarchs, as it is one of the most powerful Russian satellite republics. The Russian politicians' influence on Ukraine, which is now a constitutionally independent state since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, was deemed unacceptable by the Ukrainian people, who staged the "Orange Revolution" in Kyiv, the country's capital, during the 2004–2005 period. The revolution not only signaled the end of Russia's hegemony over Ukraine but also the institutionalization of democracy.

Even so, there are certain areas of Ukrainian society—the Crimean peninsula, the province of Luhansk and Donetsk, and others—that firmly identify as being a part of Russia. Therefore, the military action that Russia launched over Crimea in 2014 marked the beginning of one of the largest international confrontations between the two countries and reached its zenith due to the participation of outside parties like the US and the EU, which highlights the challenges in settling the dispute between the two sides. However, the Neo-imperial foreign policy of Vladimir Putin has greatly complicated this dispute. Furthermore, the inhuman deeds and degradation of human rights on Ukrainian soil demand the intervention of a third party given its strategically significant geopolitical position.
From political, economic, and military objectives to halt the US and NATO's expansionist plans in Europe, Russia has always claimed Ukraine to be a part of its motherland.
On the global scene, it has been noted that Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and the West seemed to be involved in a developing confrontation. What interests Putin has in Ukraine is thus the most often posed question. Analyzing Russia's part in the crisis will help to reach a conclusion to this subject.

Examining previous conversations between Russia and the West implies that the fundamental reason of the conflicts between the two parties is intertwined by the different views and concepts of status over whether Russia has lost or gained its international place or identity. Russian motivation has been much shaped by the external affirmation of its status as a major world power. Russia also fights to maintain its national identity while gaining greater international recognition as a major state

Historical context

Following Russia, Ukraine is the biggest state in Eastern Europe. There has been hostility between these two nations for a very long time. Foundations of the old Soviet Union Empire had been Russia and Ukraine. After Russia, Ukraine was the most powerful and populous USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic) republic and a major US adversary. The Union's nuclear, agricultural, and defence industries were centred there.

Considering the significance of Ukraine, its independence in 1991 turned out to be the last straw in the strong Soviet Union. After gaining freedom, Ukraine has always fought to become an independent country and to establish a strong alliance with Western institutions like NATO and the EU. To fully grasp the rivalry, though, one must examine the past of the hostile neighbours in order to see how the conditions for the present conflict were created.

The history of both Russia and Ukraine begins a millennium ago when "Kyiv," the capital of Ukraine today, was the centre of Kyivan Rus, the first Slavic State and the country from which both Russia and Ukraine originated. Grand prince of Kiev and pagan prince of Novgorod Vladimir I became an Orthodox Christian in 988 AD and was baptized at Chersoneses, Crimea. Making reference to this, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared recently that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people, a single whole". But competing forces have regularly split Ukraine during the last ten centuries. Kyivan Rus was conquered by eastern Mongol troops in the thirteenth century. From the west came the Lithuanian and Polish forces in the sixteenth century. The areas east of the Dnieper River came under Russian imperialism during the seventeenth century conflict between the Russian Tsardom and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Thus, Poland controlled the area west of the Dnieper, known as the "Right Bank," while the eastern sector became known as the "Left Bank" Ukraine. After more than a century, in 1793, the Russian Empire seized western Ukraine. As a result, the Russification policy prohibited the use and study of the Ukrainian language and compelled people to convert to Russian Orthodox Christianity in the years that followed (Conant, 202). Some of the worst tragedies occurred in Ukraine during the 20th century.

Before being fully included into the Soviet Union in 1922, Ukraine saw a brutal civil war that followed the 1917 communist revolution. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin forced peasants to join collective farms by staging a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians early in the 1930s. Stalin then sent in a huge number of Russians and other Soviet citizens, many of whom had no idea what Ukrainians were, to assist repopulate the east. These historical legacies created irreversible fault lines. The people living in the eastern region of Ukraine were therefore historically supportive of pro-Russian politicians and were intimately associated with Russia. Moreover, their area has also been ruled by Russia for a considerable amount of time, unlike western Ukraine. Western Ukrainians, on the other hand, typically favour more pro-Western leaders because their area was ruled by European countries like Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries. While the population in the east is usually more Orthodox and Russian speaking, portions of the west are more Catholic and speak Ukrainian. With the Soviet Union breaking up in 1991, Ukraine became independent. Yet uniting the country turned out to be difficult.

Former ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer says that "the sense of Ukrainian nationalism is not as deep in the east as it is in the west". The tedious and difficult transition to capitalism and a democratic government left many Ukrainians, particularly in the east, longing for the relative steadiness of the past. Moscow and Kiev have cut ties ever since Ukraine's bloodless Orange Revolution of 2004 overturned Viktor Yanukovych's (last President of Ukraine) fraudulent election as president.
Russian annexations: Yanukovych did, however, win the election in 2010, but he was overthrown in February 2014 after caving in to pressure from the Kremlin and breaking a trade deal with the EU. Armed conflict broke out in "Left Bank" (Eastern) Ukraine at the beginning of 2014 when Russia annexed the Ukrainian portion of Crimea. Protests followed, and the security forces brutally put an end to them in Kiev. The decision by President Viktor Yanukovych to sign a deal with the European Union for significant economic integration and collaboration was met with criticism by Eastern Ukrainians. As a result, in February 2014 president Yanukovych fled the country as societal discontent and violence increased. Thus, in March 2014, a month later, the Russian military took over the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the need of protecting the rights of Russian speakers and nationalities in Crimea and southeast Ukraine. Furthermore, Russia legitimately took the peninsula after Crimeans voted in support of joining the Russian Federation in a divisive local referendum.

The adjacent local communities witnessed the quick start of the armed conflict between the Ukrainian military forces and the Russian-backed forces. The front lines dividing Ukraine from the eastern regions occupied by Russia saw frequent fighting and bombardment as the armed struggle between the two sides descended into an active standoff. By means of Minsk agreements, which were signed in February 2015, nations such as France and Germany attempted to put an end to the violence. The agreement included steps including a truce, the removal of heavy weapons, the release of war detainees, and the restoration of the state boundary to the Ukrainian government. Still, the diplomatic initiatives proved to be fruitless.

Thus, in April 2016 NATO declared that it will send four battalions to Eastern Europe, alternating between Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Estonia, in order to counter Russian attacks elsewhere on the continent, particularly in the Baltic States. Furthermore, the US sent Poland two US Army tank brigades in September 2017 to fortify NATO's presence in the area.
Amid the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the US also imposed fresh sanctions in January 2018 on nine Russian enterprises and a number of Russian officials. But the first lethal weaponry delivery (since the outbreak of the war) came when the US State Department approved the anti-tank weaponry shipment to Ukraine in March 2018. Ukraine took part in the October 2018 escalating series of large-scale air drills in western Ukraine, together with the US and seven other NATO countries. Reacting to the maneuvers, Russia held its largest annual military exercises since the fall of the Soviet Union in September 2018. Moreover, on February 24, 2022, Russian forces attacked a completely unprepared Ukraine following the approval of a "special military operation" by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin said that the operation was meant to demilitarize, de-Nazify, and cease the purported killing of Russians in Ukrainian territory.

Putin’s stance

Concerning the situation in Ukraine, the west generally holds that Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, is to blame for the situation there and most definitely for the continuous conflict in the area. Regarding Ukraine, Putin is seen to have imperialist goals, i.e., to subjugate Ukraine and other nations in order to build a bigger Russia that is something similar to the previous USSR. His initial goal is therefore Ukraine, so it makes sense for Sweden and Finland to join NATO in order to raise their military presence in Eastern Europe and counter Russia's imperialist activities. Putin sees the Ukraine as an "artificial state" rather than a real one and regards Russians and Ukrainians as "one people" with a shared past. One of the obvious causes of the conflict is also that Putin views the fall of the Soviet Union as the biggest geopolitical disaster of the century. In addition, Putin said in his address that Russia was the one who founded modern Ukraine. More accurately, Putin had an intention of absorbing Ukraine into Russia.
Even yet, Putin proclaimed Ukraine to be an independent state in his address delivered on July 12, 2021, which also provided the rationale behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, namely “not our intention to annex Ukraine”. The modern Ukraine poses a threat to Russia since it has turned into a platform for the west and its allies to launch an attack against it.

Reasons behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

The true reason of the war is seen in the US attempts to include Ukraine in a Western-led defense against Russian frontiers. Three projections make up this plan: first, include Ukrainian territory in the EU; second, turn Ukraine into a liberal democracy with a western orientation; and third, include Ukraine in the NATO alliance. When NATO formally declared that Georgia and Ukraine will join the alliance during its yearly summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April 2008, this plan was put into action. The Russian authorities so retaliated aggressively to make it plain that this would seriously jeopardize Russia's national security and that neither nation will be allowed to join NATO. Furthermore, the Russian President forewarned Ukraine that joining the alliance would have irreversible effects, meaning that Russia would do so with Crimea and the other eastern areas that would just disintegrate.

As a result, these initiatives ignited the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean territory from Ukraine and fueled the civil conflict. The military alliance has already been training Ukrainian armed forces, training over 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Moreover, when Trump chose to give Kyiv defensive weapons during his presidency, other NATO nations also stepped up and sent Ukraine even more weapons. Military troops of Ukraine started taking part in joint military drills with NATO forces as well. "It was NATO's efforts to train and arm Ukraine," is how one may accurately summarize NATO's policy.

There are several reasons behind the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The main reasons are Crimea and the Donbas region. Crimea was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1954 to improve relations between Russia and Ukraine. However, Russian nationalists in Crimea wanted it to be part of Russia again after the Soviet collapse. Russia considers Crimea important historically and culturally. There were also many ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, especially in the east and south. Russia justified its actions in Donbas and Crimea by saying it needed to protect these regions.

Losing Ukraine was seen as a historical mistake and potential threat to Russia's superpower status after the Soviet collapse. Losing influence over Ukraine also damaged Russia's international image. Russia's economic relations with Ukraine had also deteriorated over time with China establishing stronger trade ties. Russia wanted to merge Ukraine into the Eurasian Economic Union. There are also strong historical and cultural ties between Russia and Ukraine, with Kyiv considered the "mother of Russian cities", which contributed to Russia's annexation of parts of Ukraine.

Possible solutions to the problem

• Although a ceasefire would seem to be the ideal quick fix, underlying differences make it challenging to achieve. Ukraine wants to join NATO while Russia opposes this and has annexed Crimea.

• To oppose Russia, the US and NATO partners should keep giving Ukraine financial, political, and military assistance. A rule-based order must be maintained by them imposing penalties and respecting UN charter provisions.

• One workable approach might be to split Ukraine into parts like Eastern Ukraine and use them as a buffer state between Russia and pro-EU Ukraine. A demilitarised zone akin to that between North and South Korea may result from this.

• A diplomatic solution might result from promoting direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine with assistance from nations like Turkey. Both parties may find an acceptable solution if Ukraine is allowed access to the EU market without full membership.

Thus we may make an argument regarding the  that the war might be resolved with the use of buffer zones, diplomacy, compromises on both sides, and ongoing international backing.

Conclusion

Russia and Ukraine have been involved in antagonism since the collapse of the USSR. The friction between their relations first led to a full fledge crisis in 2014 and now a war in 2022. The primary causes behind the hostility are Russia’s aspiration to make the Crimean region part of the Russian Federation, to make the Donbas region independent, and to recover its image as a superpower figure in the global arena. Moreover, the crisis has also led to serious repercussions for Ukraine, the European region, and as well as for the entire Globe. Ukraine is torn by both humanitarian and economic crises while Europe, in general, is also facing an economic topsy turvy as it depends on approximately 40% of the energy supply from Russia which is indeed disrupted now up to a greater extent. If the ongoing issue between Russia and Ukraine is not resolved on time, we might see these crises as contributing factors to the downfall of Europe.

FAQs

1. To what can we appropriate the reason behind Russia-Ukraine war?

Ans. The reason for Russia-Ukraine war can be appropriated to the underlying economic and geopolitical dynamics between the two states, while keeping in mind the historical background of the same.

2. What are the key motivations for Russian invasion in Ukraine?

Ans. The key factors for Russian invasion in Ukraine are- Russia's attempt to re-establish itself as a global power, a reaction to NATO's eastward expansion towards Russia's borders, a desire to prevent Ukraine from fully aligning with the West, and Putin aiming to reinforce his autocratic regime's Stalinist power structure.

3. How can a NATO policy be effective to resolve or minimize the conflict between the two states?

Ans. NATO, along with the US, can lead a coalition of democratic nations to provide substantial military assistance to Ukraine, enhancing its ability to resist Russian forces.