For months, President Vladimir Putin denied that he would invade Ukraine, but then he ripped up a peace pact and launched “Putin’s war,” sending troops into the country’s north, east, and south.
As the death toll rises, Russia’s president is accused of shattering Europe’s peace. What happens next might put the continent’s whole security system at jeopardy.
Why have Russian troops launched an attack?
President Vladimir Putin warned on February 24 in a pre-dawn TV address that Russia could not feel “secure, develop, or exist” because of what he believed was a persistent danger from modern Ukraine.
Airports and military offices were attacked immediately, followed by the arrival of tanks and troops from Russia, Russian-annexed Crimea, and its ally Belarus. Warplanes have already bombarded major cities, and Russian soldiers have taken control of Kherson, a crucial southern port city.
Russia refuses to use the phrases “war” or “invasion,” despite the fact that many of its leaders’ arguments were wrong or unreasonable.
He said that his purpose was to safeguard those who had been bullied or subjected to genocide, as well as to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” Ukraine. There has been no genocide in the country.
He said that his purpose was to safeguard those who had been bullied or subjected to genocide, as well as to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” Ukraine. There has been no genocide in Ukraine, which is a thriving democracy governed by a Jewish president.
“How could I be a Nazi?” says the narrator. Volodymyr Zelensky compared Russia’s assault to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland during World War II. Russia’s slander was also rejected by Ukraine’s head rabbi and the Auschwitz Memorial.
Since Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in 2014 after months of protests against his government, President Putin has regularly accused the country of being taken over by extremists.
Russia replied by taking Crimea’s southern area and sparking a rebellion in the east, supporting separatists against Ukrainian soldiers in a war that has claimed 14,000 lives.
Late in 2021, Russia began massing soldiers near Ukraine’s borders, although repeatedly claiming that it intended to attack. Then, in 2015, Mr Putin canceled a peace settlement for the east and declared rebel-controlled areas independent.
Russia has long opposed Ukraine joining the European Union and Nato, the West’s defensive military alliance. He accused Nato of endangering “our historic future as a nation” as he announced Russia’s invasion.
How far is Russia willing to go?
Russia is clearly attempting to take the country’s major cities and destabilize Ukraine’s democratically elected government. “The enemy has classified me as target number one; my family is target number two,” President Zelensky added.
Russia’s stated goal is to free Ukraine from persecution and “clear it of Nazis.” Mr Putin has spoken of bringing to justice “those who committed multiple horrific crimes against people” under this false narrative of a fascist-run Ukraine since 2014.
He faces fierce opposition from a hostile people, but he has demonstrated that he is willing to bomb residential areas in order to achieve his objectives. Although Russia’s Baltic neighbours face no immediate threat, Nato has reinforced their defences just in case.
Prior to the invasion, Russia’s public attention was always on the eastern areas controlled by Russian-backed rebels. However, this changed as President Putin acknowledged their independence.
He not only stated that they were no longer part of Ukraine, but he also stated that he supported their claims to considerably more Ukrainian land. The self-proclaimed people’s republics control less than a third of the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, and the insurgents want the remainder as well.
Image source: BBC news
Is this invasion a threat to Europe?
As bombs rain down on cities and inhabitants race to Cold War-era bomb shelters, Ukrainians are terrified.
Thousands of civilians and military personnel have already been killed in what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has branded “Putin’s war.” Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled across Ukraine’s borders as a result of Russia’s bombardment.
A large influx is occurring in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, and Slovakia, with the EU estimating that more than seven million people will be displaced.
Russia’s president has even placed his nuclear weapons on high alert, only days after warning the West with “consequences like you have never seen” if it stands in his way.
What options does the West have?
There are no preparations to send combat troops to Ukraine, according to Nato’s defence alliance. However, member countries have provided guns and field hospitals, and the EU is buying and sending arms and other equipment for the first time in its history.
Nato has sent tens of thousands of troops to the Baltic nations and Poland, and is activating a portion of its much bigger quick response force for the first time. NATO would not announce where the troops will be sent, but some may be sent to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia.
What is Putin’s goal?
He has demanded not just that Ukraine never join Nato, but that the alliance turn back the clock to 1997 and stop expanding eastward. “Do they think we’ll just sit idly by?” he said, complaining that Russia had “nowhere else to flee to.”
He wants Nato to withdraw its forces and military facilities from member states that joined the alliance after 1997 and to refrain from deploying “strike weapons” near Russia’s borders. That includes Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Baltic States.
But this isn’t just about NATO. Russia’s leader, in the words of Germany’s chancellor, “wants to take over Europe according to his world view.”
President Putin penned a long post last year portraying Russians and Ukrainians as
“one people,” and he has referred to the Soviet Union’s demise in December 1991 as the “disintegration of historical Russia.”
He claims that contemporary Ukraine was totally built by communist Russia and that it is now a puppet state under Western influence.
Protests against Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin president erupted in 2013 as a result of his pressure on the country not to sign an association treaty with the EU.
The West agreed in 1990 that Nato would expand “not an inch to the east,” but did so nevertheless, according to President Putin.
However, because this was before the Soviet Union’s demise, the pledge made to then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev only applied to East Germany as part of a reunified Germany. “The question of Nato enlargement was never considered” at the time, Mr Gorbachev later stated.
What has Nato said about this?
Nato is a defensive alliance that welcomes new members with open arms, and its 30 members are determined that this will not change.
Ukraine’s president wants a clear schedule, while Germany’s chancellor has stated that Ukraine would not join for a long period. Any present Nato member countries giving up their membership is a non-starter.
Edited By- Kiran Maharana
Published By- Pawan Rajput
