The War between Russia and Ukraine is an ongoing international conflict, which began in February 2014. Ukraine is a sovereign nation with its own language, culture, and political system and, while the two countries have a shared history, Ukraine has battled hard to establish its own identity.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire, and in 1917 the Russian Revolution tore apart the empire, causing the country to undergo years of chaos and civil war. And during this time, Ukraine was able to gain independence from Russian rule, but it was quickly taken back by the Soviet Union. Over the next decade, the Soviet Union expanded its control by annexing smaller East European countries, and by the end of the second world war, a field of influence was brought up, which included countries extending from East Germany to Bulgaria. While the Soviets were making their own spheres of influence backed up by communism, the West was also setting up spheres of influence on Western European nations which were backed up by capitalism and democracy, this resulted in the division of Europe and marked the beginning of the Cold War.
In 1949, Western Europe along with the US and Canada formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) following soon the East European countries set up the Warsaw Pact alliance. The world remained like this until 1991 when the USSR collapsed, which led to many republics, including Ukraine, starting to declare independence from Soviet Rule, which led to 15 independent republics and The Russian Federation. And even though the Cold War ended, the NATO alliance was still going strong and many countries that were in the Warsaw Pact started joining and becoming NATO members. This led to NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe. The last few countries that didn’t join NATO were Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia.
However, Ukraine and Georgia sought to join NATO, which made them targets for the new Russian Federation, and in 1994 Ukraine became a NATO partner, bringing them one step closer to NATO membership. And in 2013 Ukraine was going to sign a cooperation deal with the European Union, but this did not happen because Ukraine’s pro-Russian government decided not to side with the EU, but rather they chose to strengthen ties with Russia. In response, the people of Ukraine took to the streets and started to protest, and after months of peaceful protests, the president was thrown out of power and the country. Which led to Putin being unable to influence Ukraine.
Putin then decided to respond by annexing the Crimean Peninsula and capturing the Donbas region and he declared them independent. On the 21st of February 2022, Putin started sending Russian troops into the annexed territories of Ukraine and on the border of Ukraine and Belarus. Ukraine then declared itself in a state of emergency. Days later, on the 24th of February, Putin then launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This resulted in Ukrainian refugees fleeing to different parts of the world and several countries started sending military equipment to help Ukraine fight the war. The Russians expected a quick and easy victory, but they ran into some unexpected logistical issues.
While the Russians were fighting to capture Kyiv, they found themselves fighting 2.5 miles away from Belarus and their supply line was caught up in a traffic jam. The Ukrainians took advantage of this by ambushing the Russian vehicles and cutting off their supply line. 2 months later, Russian Generals found out that the war with Ukraine was not going to be a breeze but rather a long and grueling war, so troops that were fighting on the Kyiv front were redeployed to other fronts. Two days later, the siege of Mariupol commenced as the Russian army pushed East from the region of Donbas. The Russians also attacked from Crimea, which helped them to advance West. This led to the first major Ukrainian city, Kherson, to fall to the Russian army helping the Russians advance to another strategic city, Mykolaiv.
The assault on Mykolaiv ultimately failed due to the stiff resistance met by the Russians, so things came to a drag in the Southern front. In the East, the Russians tried to capture Kharkiv, but it ended up being a fight that kept swinging in the hands of the Russians and Ukrainians. At the moment, a majority of the districts in Kharkiv are in the hands of the Ukrainians, and only a few remain in the hands of the Russians. Meanwhile, the siege of Mariupol came to an end when the Russians were able to capture the remaining soldiers in a steelworks facility on the 20th of May, ending the 4-month-long siege. On the 11th of November, Kherson was liberated from Russian rule.
It is also worth mentioning that during the war, many countries sanctioned Russia’s economy and supplied financial aid to Ukraine, and many Russians who even fought against the Ukrainians didn’t support this war, with many even voluntarily surrendering and deserting. The Russians at home were even protesting against the war, saying that Putin’s invasion was an unreasonable and fallacious cause. Not only has the war turned into a display of Russia’s military ineptitude, but it has also tarnished Russia’s reputation giving everyone the idea that Russia is a country that arbitrarily starts wars of aggression.