WHAT LED TO UKRAINE-RUSSIA CONFLICT?

 

We have been hearing about the never-ending conflict between Ukraine and Russia since the 1990s and particularly from the last two years. Let’s try to find out all about the reasons and aspects of this dispute affecting the world economy and politics from scratch to date.

UKRAINIAN INDEPENDENCE

Ukraine is a country wedged between Russia and Europe. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became an independent state, formalized with a referendum in December 1991. On 21 January 1990, over 300,000 Ukrainians organized a human chain for Ukrainian independence between Kyiv and Lviv. Ukraine officially declared itself an independent country on 24 August 1991, when the communist Supreme Soviet (parliament) of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine would no longer follow the laws of the USSR and only the laws of the Ukrainian SSR, de facto declaring Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. On 1 December, voters approved a referendum formalizing independence from the Soviet Union. Over 90% of Ukrainian citizens voted for independence, with majorities in every region, including 56% in Crimea. The Soviet Union formally ceased to exist on 26 December, when the presidents of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia (the founding members of the USSR) met in Białowieża Forest to formally dissolve the Union in accordance with the Soviet Constitution. With this Ukraine’s independence was formalized de jure and recognized by the international community.

Since its independence, it has been a less-than-perfect democracy with a very weak economy and foreign policy that wavers between pro-Russian and pro-European.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

The period between 2010 to the present-day stances of the ruling governments in Russia and Ukraine is essential to understand what led to contemporary tensions between the two countries and the whole world.

• YANUKOVYCH’S PRESIDENCY

In Ukraine, President Viktor Yanukovych was elected with the vast majority in 2010. President Yanukovych was widely seen as a pro-Russian politician inclined to seek compromises with Moscow. An internal Ukrainian crisis broke out in November 2013, when President Yanukovych rejected a deal for greater integration with the European Union, sparking mass protests, which Yanukovych attempted to put down violently. Russia backed Yanukovych in the crisis, while the US and Europe supported the protesters. Police violently dispersed crowds in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”), and, as the protests continued into December, demonstrators occupied Kyiv’s city hall and called on Yanukovych to resign. Russia, in turn, offered to cut the price of natural gas and purchase $15 billion in Ukrainian bonds to prop up the country’s faltering economy.

• SUCCESSION OF CRIMEA

In late February 2014, a few days after Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president was ousted from power, strange bands of armed gunmen began seizing government buildings in Crimea. Some Crimeans held rallies to show support for the ousted president and, in some cases, to call to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. The bands of gunmen grew until it became obvious they were Russian military forces, who forcefully but bloodlessly brought the entire peninsula under military occupation. On March 16, 2014, Crimeans voted overwhelmingly for their region to become a part of Russia.

Most of the world sees Crimea’s secession vote as illegitimate for a few reasons: it was held under hostile Russian military occupation with no international monitoring and many reports of intimidation, it was pushed through with only a couple of weeks’ warning, and it was illegal under Ukrainian law. Still, legitimate or not, Crimea has effectively become part of Russia. The US and European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Russia to punish Moscow for this, but there is no sign that Crimea will return to Ukraine.

• THE MINSK PROTOCOL

Self-proclaimed-Donetsk People’s Republics and Luhansk People’s Republics signed an agreement to establish a ceasefire, called the Minsk Protocol, on 5 September 2014. Violations of the ceasefire on both sides became common. Amidst the solidification of the line between insurgent and government-controlled territory during the ceasefire, warlords took control of swaths of land on the insurgent side, leading to further destabilization. The ceasefire completely collapsed in January 2015, with renewed heavy fighting across the conflict zone, including at Donetsk International Airport and at Debaltseve. Involved parties agreed to a new ceasefire, called Minsk II, on 12 February 2015. Immediately following the signing of the agreement, separatist forces launched an offensive on Debaltseve and forced Ukrainian forces to withdraw from it. In the months after the fall of Debaltseve, minor skirmishes continued along the line of contact, but no territorial changes occurred. This state of stalemate led to the war being labeled a “frozen conflict” despite this, the area remained a war zone, with dozens of soldiers and civilians killed each month. According to both parties to the conflict, the fourth truce attempt of 2017 collapsed within a few hours on 24 June 2017.

On 18 January 2018, the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill to regain control over separatist-held areas. The bill was adopted with support from 280 lawmakers in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada (due to the war in Donbas and the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, only 423 of the parliament’s 450 seats were elected in the previous election. The Russian government denounced the bill, calling it “preparations for a new war”, and accused the Ukrainian government of violating the Minsk agreement.

• ZELENSKY’S PRESIDENCY

Volodymyr Zelensky took office on May 20, 2019, and used his inauguration speech to announce the dissolution of parliament and the triggering of snap legislative elections. Those elections, held on July 21, delivered an absolute parliamentary majority to Zelensky’s Servant of the People party. This confirmation of Zelensky’s mandate allowed him to promote a peace settlement that would see Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed insurgents withdraw from the so-called “contact line” in eastern Ukraine. Zelensky’s opponents characterized the move as a capitulation that would do nothing but legitimize Russian aggression in the Donets Basin and Crimea, but he retained widespread support from a war-weary public. While Zelensky endeavored to focus his months-old administration on Ukraine’s foreign and domestic challenges, he soon found himself drawn into a political scandal in the United States.

THE INCEPTION OF STRIKE OF WAR

Beginning in 2020, the spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to massive disruptions of daily life in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian economy took a sharp hit from lockdowns and the closure of nonessential businesses.

Between October and November 2021, Russia began a massive buildup of troops and military equipment along its border with Ukraine. Over the following months, additional forces were dispatched to Belarus, the Russian-backed separatist enclave of Transdniestria in Moldova, and Russian-occupied Crimea. By February 2022 Western defense analysts estimated that as many as 190,000 Russian troops were encircling Ukraine and warned that a Russian incursion was imminent. Putin dismissed these accusations and claimed that an accompanying Russian naval buildup in the Black Sea was a previously scheduled exercise. While Western leaders consulted with both Zelensky and Putin in an effort to stave off a Russian invasion that appeared inevitable, Putin issued demands that included de facto veto power over NATO expansion and the containment of NATO forces to countries that had been members prior to 1997. This would, in effect, remove the NATO security umbrella from eastern and southern Europe as well as the Baltic states. These proposals were flatly rejected.

On February 21, 2022, Putin responded by recognizing the independence of the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukrainian territory as “peacekeepers,” and Russian military activity in the Donbas—ongoing since 2014 but consistently disavowed by the Kremlin—at last became overt. Western leaders, pledging solidarity with Ukraine, responded by levying a raft of sanctions against Russian financial institutions. In the early hours of February 24, Zelensky addressed the Russian people directly, delivering an impassioned plea for peace, but vowing that Ukraine would defend itself. Later that day, at around 6:00 AM Moscow time, Putin took to the airwaves to announce the beginning of a “special military operation.” Within minutes, explosions were heard in major cities across Ukraine and air raid sirens began to sound in Kyiv. Around the world, leaders condemned the unprovoked attack and promised swift and severe sanctions against Russia.

MASSIVE ATTACK 

As of now on 24 February 2022, the situation has worsened to the extent that the UN’s high commissioner for refugees has warned that the situation in Ukraine is quickly deteriorating and appealed to neighbouring countries to keep their borders open to people seeking a safe haven. US President Joe Biden, who has ruled out putting US troops on the ground in Ukraine, said Putin had chosen a premeditated war that would bring a “catastrophic loss of life and human suffering”. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Russia faces “unprecedented isolation” over its attack on Ukraine and will be hit with the “harshest sanctions” the EU has ever imposed.

Russia is Europe’s biggest supplier of gas, crude oil, and coal. Delivered through a sprawling pipeline network and on vessels carrying supercooled gas, Russian gas met about 38% of European Union demand in 2020, according to the most recent official data. U.S. and European officials have scrambled in recent weeks to shore up supplies. If Russian flows were cut off, Europe could import large amounts of liquefied natural gas as well as fuel from pipelines linking the Continent to Norway, Azerbaijan, and Algeria. It also could release gas held in a strategic reserve in Italy. Germany is particularly exposed. While many European countries tried to untether their economies from Russian energy markets after Moscow cut supplies to Ukraine earlier this century, Europe’s biggest economy doubled down on trade with Russia.