Digital Desk: Do you know why Russia invaded Ukraine? Russia has launched an attack on Ukraine, potentially igniting a European war over Russia's demands for an end to NATO's eastward expansion. Here are 10 reasons that explain the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
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- While tensions between Russia and Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, had existed for some time, the situation began to spiral out of control in early 2021. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged US President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to join NATO in January of last year.
- This infuriated Russia, which began sending troops near its Ukrainian border for "training exercises" in the spring of last year and increased their presence during the autumn. By December, the US had begun to hype up the deployment of Russian troops, and President Biden had threatened Russia with severe sanctions if it invaded Ukraine.
- Russia has demanded that the West provide a legally binding guarantee that NATO will not conduct military operations in eastern Europe or Ukraine. Vladimir Putin claims Ukraine is a Western puppet and was never a proper state in the first place.
- This is not the first time that tensions between Russia and Ukraine have erupted. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, after rebels backed by President Putin seized large swaths of eastern Ukraine, and has been fighting Ukraine's army ever since. Russia had annexed Crimea at the time.
- Ukraine, as a former Soviet republic, has deep social and cultural ties with Russia, and Russian is widely spoken there, but those ties have frayed since Russia invaded in 2014.
- When Ukraine's pro-Russian president was deposed in early 2014, Russia launched an attack. More than 14,000 people have died as a result of the war in the east.
- Russia and Ukraine had signed the Minsk peace agreement to put an end to the armed conflict in east Ukraine, including the Donbas region. However, as the conflict has raged on, Russia has stated that it is sending "peacekeepers" to the region where the conflict is raging. The West sees it as a ruse used by Moscow to occupy sovereign territory.
- The renewed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which borders the European Union, has ramifications for the EU. As a result, the EU, the majority of which are NATO signatories, has joined the US in announcing sanctions against Russian entities.
- Only a few weeks ago, French President Emmanuel Macron flew to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to defuse tensions.
- India has called for a diplomatic solution to the current Russian-Ukrainian crisis.
