All about the russian and the ukrainian war

1. Russo-Ukrainian War
The Russo-UkrainThe Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing war primarily involving Russia,
pro-Russian forces, and Belarus on one side, and Ukraine and its international supporters
on the other. Conflict began in February 2014 following the Revolution of Dignity, and
focused on the status of Crimea and parts of the Donbas, internationally recognised as
part of Ukraine. The conflict includes the Russian annexation of Crimea (2014), the war in
Donbas (2014–present), naval incidents, cyberwarfare, and political tensions. Intentionally
concealing its involvement, Russia gave military backing to separatists in the Donbas
from 2014 onwards. Having built up a large military presence on the border from late 2021,
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, which is ongoing.
Following the Euromaidan protests and a revolution resulting in the removal of
pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014, pro-Russian unrest
erupted in parts of Ukraine. Russian soldiers without insignia took control of strategic
positions and infrastructure in the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Unmarked Russian
troops seized the Crimean Parliament and Russia organized a widely-criticised
referendum, whose outcome was for Crimea to join Russia. It then annexed Crimea. In
April 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian groups in the Donbas region of Ukraine
escalated into a war between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists of the
self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk republics.
In August 2014, unmarked Russian military vehicles crossed the border into the Donetsk
republic. An undeclared war began between Ukrainian forces and separatists intermingled
with Russian troops, although Russia denied the presence of its troops in the Donbas.
The war settled into a stalemate, with repeated failed attempts at ceasefire. In 2015, a
package of agreements called Minsk II were signed by Russia and Ukraine, but a number
of disputes prevented them from being fully implemented. By 2019, 7% of Ukraine's
territory was classified by the Ukrainian government as temporarily occupied territories,
while the Russian government had indirectly acknowledged the presence of its troops in
Ukraine.
In 2021 and early 2022, there was a major Russian military build-up around Ukraine's
borders. NATO accused Russia of planning an invasion, which it denied. Russian
President Vladimir Putin criticized the enlargement of NATO as a threat to his country and
demanded Ukraine be barred from ever joining the military alliance. He also expressed
Russian irredentist views, questioned Ukraine's right to exist, and stated Ukraine was
wrongfully created by Soviet Russia. On 21 February 2022, Russia officially recognised
the two self-proclaimed separatist states in the Donbas, and sent troops to the territories.
Three days later, Russia invaded Ukraine after Putin announced a "special military
operation". Much of the international community and organizations such as Amnesty
International have condemned Russia for its actions in post-revolutionary Ukraine,
accusing it of breaking international law and violating Ukrainian sovereignty. Many
countries implemented economic sanctions against Russia, Russian individuals, or
companies, especially after the 2022 invasion.
on 24 February 2022, which is ongoing.
Following the Euromaidan protests and a revolution resulting in the removal of
pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014, pro-Russian unrest

2. erupted in parts of Ukraine. Russian soldiers without insignia took control of strategic
positions and infrastructure in the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Unmarked Russian
troops seized the Crimean Parliament and Russia organized a widely-criticised
referendum, whose outcome was for Crimea to join Russia. It then annexed Crimea. In
April 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian groups in the Donbas region of Ukraine
escalated into a war between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists of the
self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk republics.
In August 2014, unmarked Russian military vehicles crossed the border into the Donetsk
republic. An undeclared war began between Ukrainian forces and separatists intermingled
with Russian troops, although Russia denied the presence of its troops in the Donbas.
The war settled into a stalemate, with repeated failed attempts at ceasefire. In 2015, a
package of agreements called Minsk II were signed by Russia and Ukraine, but a number
of disputes prevented them from being fully implemented. By 2019, 7% of Ukraine's
territory was classified by the Ukrainian government as temporarily occupied territories,
while the Russian government had indirectly acknowledged the presence of its troops in
Ukraine.
In 2021 and early 2022, there was a major Russian military build-up around Ukraine's
borders. NATO accused Russia of planning an invasion, which it denied. Russian
President Vladimir Putin criticized the enlargement of NATO as a threat to his country and
demanded Ukraine be barred from ever joining the military alliance. He also expressed
Russian irredentist views, questioned Ukraine's right to exist, and stated Ukraine was
wrongfully created by Soviet Russia. On 21 February 2022, Russia officially recognised
the two self-proclaimed separatist states in the Donbas, and sent troops to the territories.
Three days later, Russia invaded Ukraine after Putin announced a "special military
operation". Much of the international community and organizations such as Amnesty
International have condemned Russia for its actions in post-revolutionary Ukraine,
accusing it of breaking international law and violating Ukrainian sovereignty. Many
countries implemented economic sanctions against Russia, Russian individuals, or
companies,
[22]
especially after the 2022 invasion.
The 1954 transfer of Crimea, home to the Black Sea Fleet,
[23]
from the Russian SFSR to
the Ukrainian SSR came at the direction of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. It was
viewed as an insignificant "symbolic gesture", as both republics were a part of the Soviet
Union and answerable to the government in Moscow.
[24][25][26]
Crimean autonomy was
re-established after a referendum in 1991.
[27]
Although an independent country since 1991, as a former soviet socialist republic, Russia
considers Ukraine part of its sphere of influence. Iulian Chifu and his co-authors say that,
in regard to Ukraine, Russia pursues a modernized version of the Brezhnev Doctrine on
"limited sovereignty", which dictates that the sovereignty of Ukraine cannot be larger than
that of the Warsaw Pact prior to the demise of the Soviet sphere of influence with the
Revolutions of 1989.
[28]
This claim is based on statements of Russian leaders that
possible integration of Ukraine into NATO would jeopardize Russia's national
security.
[29][30][28]
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine and Russia retained very
close ties for decades. Yet there were several sticking points, most importantly Ukraine's
significant nuclear arsenal, which Ukraine agreed to abandon in the Budapest
Memorandum on Security Assurances (December 1994) on condition that Russia and the

3. other signatories would issue an assurance against threats or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. In 1999, Russia signed the
Charter for European Security, where it "reaffirmed the inherent right of each and every
participating State to be free to choose or change its security arrangements, including
treaties of alliance, as they evolve".
[31]
Another point was the division of the Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine agreed to lease a number of
naval facilities including those in Sevastopol, so that the Russian Black Sea fleet could
continue to be based there together with Ukrainian naval forces. Starting in 1993, through
the 1990s and 2000s, Ukraine and Russia engaged in several gas disputes.
[32]
In 2001,
Ukraine, along with Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, formed a group called GUAM
Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, which Russia saw as a direct
challenge to the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Russian-dominated trade
group established after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
[33]
Russia was further irritated by the Orange Revolution of 2004, in which the pro-European
Viktor Yushchenko was elected president instead of the pro-Russian Viktor
Yanukovych.
[34]
Moreover, Ukraine continued to increase its cooperation with NATO,
deploying the third-largest contingent of troops to Iraq in 2004, and dedicating
peacekeepers to NATO missions such as the ISAF force in Afghanistan and KFOR in
Kosovo.
[35]
Yanukovych was elected in 2010 and Russia felt that many ties with Ukraine could be
repaired. Prior to this, Ukraine had not renewed the lease of naval facilities in Crimea,
meaning that Russian troops would have to leave Crimea by 2017. Yanukovych signed a
new lease and expanded the number of allowable troops, as well as allowing troops to
train in the Kerch peninsula.
[36]
Many in Ukraine viewed the extension as unconstitutional,
because Ukraine's constitution states that no foreign troops shall be permanently
stationed in Ukraine after the Sevastopol treaty expired. Yulia Tymoshenko, the main
opposition figure of Yanukovych, was jailed on charges that were called political
persecution by international observers, leading to further dissatisfaction with the
government. In November 2013, Viktor Yanukovych declined to sign an association
agreement with the European Union, a treaty that had been in development for several
years and one that the pro-Russian Yanukovych, who favoured closer ties with Russia,
had earlier approved.
[37]
In September 2013, Russia warned that if Ukraine entered a planned free trade agreement
with the European Union, it would face financial catastrophe and possibly the collapse of
the state.
[38]
Sergey Glazyev, adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin, said that
"Ukrainian authorities are making a huge mistake if they think that the Russian reaction
will become neutral in a few years from now. This will not happen." Russia had already
imposed import restrictions on certain Ukrainian products and Glazyev did not rule out
further sanctions if the agreement was signed.
[38]
Glazyev allowed for the possibility of separatist movements springing up in the
Russian-speaking east and south of Ukraine. He insisted that if Ukraine signed the
agreement, it would violate the bilateral treaty on strategic partnership and friendship with
Russia that delineates the two countries’ borders. Russia would no longer guarantee
Ukraine's status as a state and could possibly intervene if pro-Russian regions of the
country appealed directly to Russia.
[38]

4. Euromaidan, anti-Maidan, and Revolution of Dignity
Main articles: Anti-Maidan, Euromaidan, and Revolution of Dignity
Following months of protests as part of the Euromaidan movement, on 21 February 2014
Yanukovych and the leaders of the parliamentary opposition signed a settlement
agreement that called for early elections. The following day, Yanukovych fled from the
capital ahead of an impeachment vote that stripped him of his powers as
president.
[39][40][41][42]
On 27 February, an interim government was established and early presidential elections
were scheduled. The following day, Yanukovych resurfaced in Russia and in a press
conference declared that he remained the acting president of Ukraine, just as Russia was
beginning its overt military campaign in Crimea. Leaders of Russian-speaking eastern
regions of Ukraine declared continuing loyalty to Yanukovych,
[40][43]
causing the 2014
pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine. On 23 February, the parliament adopted a bill to repeal the
2012 law which gave Russian language an official status.
[44]
The bill was not enacted,
[45]
however, the proposal provoked negative reactions in the Russian-speaking regions of
Ukraine,
[46]
intensified by Russian media saying that the ethnic Russian population were
in imminent danger.
[47]
On 27 February, Berkut special police units from Crimea and other regions of Ukraine,
which had been dissolved on 25 February, seized checkpoints on the Isthmus of Perekop
and Chonhar peninsula.
[48][49]
According to Ukrainian MP Hennadiy Moskal, former chief
of the Crimean police, these Berkut had armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers,
assault rifles, machine guns, and other weapons.
[49]
Since then, they have controlled all
land traffic between Crimea and continental Ukraine.
[49]
On 7 February 2014, a leaked
audio revealed that United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian
Affairs Victoria Nuland in Kyiv, was weighing in on the make-up of the next Ukrainian
government. Nuland told United States Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt that she did not think
Vitaly Klitschko should be in a new government. The audio clip was first posted on Twitter
by Dmitry Loskutov, an aide to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.
[50]
Russian financing of militias and Glazyev tapes
In August 2016, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) published the first batch of
telephone intercepts from 2014 of Sergey Glazyev (Russian presidential adviser),
Konstantin Zatulin, and other people in which they discussed covert funding of
pro-Russian activists in Eastern Ukraine, the occupation of administration buildings and
other actions that in due course led to the armed conflict.
[51]
Glazyev refused to deny the
authenticity of the intercepts, while Zatulin confirmed they were real but "taken out of
context".
[52]
Further batches were presented as evidence during criminal proceedings
against former president Yanukovych in Kyiv's Obolon court between 2017 and 2018.
[53]
As early as February 2014, Glazyev give direct instructions to various pro-Russian parties
in Ukraine to instigate unrest in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, and Odessa. He told various
pro-Russian actors to take over local administration offices, what to do afterwards, and

5. how to formulate their demands, and promised support from Russia, including "sending
our guys".