Russian Vs Ukraine

The war in eastern Ukraine has shattered Ukraine’s economy and, in a broader sense, Russia’s global standing. Since its onset in February of 2022, it has enflamed a refugee crisis in Europe and prompted millions of Russians to leave their homes, despite a Kremlin campaign of deceit, propaganda, and genocidal rhetoric on state-run television. Whole cities, including the cultural and industrial hub of Mariupol, have been reduced to rubble, with evident atrocities fitting the definition of war crimes occurring and being broadcast on the regular.

For years, Russian officials have assumed that a substantial portion of Ukraine’s population, particularly in eastern and southern regions, remains committed to the idea of a “all-Russian” nation and that only Banderite leaders and manipulation by foreign powers are driving their country toward the West. This logic underpinned the annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in the Donbas region.

During the Euromaidan uprising that forced Yanukovych from power in 2014, Putin framed the tumult as a Western-backed “fascist coup” that endangered the ethnic Russian majority in Ukraine. He then launched a covert invasion that he subsequently framed as a rescue operation.

The Kremlin’s gamble reflects its assumption that the military can succeed where various other forms of intervention have failed. But unless Russia undergoes an internal political transformation and withdraws from Ukraine, its armed incursion will continue to have major security implications throughout the continent. And if Russia does not cease its war against Ukraine, its neighbors will have valid reasons to fear that Putin is planning aggression elsewhere.