On February 24, 2022, the Russian troops invaded Ukraine. The Ukrainian government decided on the general mobilization of the army; males between the ages of 18 and 60 can be called up for military service and are not allowed to leave the country. More than 1 million people have now fled, the UNHCR says. In this article, we will answer some eight questions about the Ukraine war, stay tuned!
So what does Russian President Vladimir Putin want to achieve with the invasion?
Mr Putin himself does not speak of a “war” but of a “military operation”. According to Putin, the operation is intended to “protect people who have been mistreated and murdered by the Kyiv regime for eight years”. The goal, he said, was the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine. Calling the Russian incursion a “war,” “aggression,” or “invasion” has since been officially banned within Russia and punished with long prison sentences, prompting numerous foreign broadcasters, including the BBC, CNN, and even ARD and ZDF, to cease their coverage from Russia.
The claims spread by Putin are not tenable. The Kremlin already spread false claims that a “Nazi junta” would rule in Kyiv after the Maidan revolution in 2014. In fact, there is currently only one deputy in parliament from the far-right “Svoboda” party, which received just over two percent of the vote in the 2019 elections. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish; his grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.
Experts say the intention behind Russian propaganda is to legitimize the war to subsequently gain political control over Ukraine. In a commentary published inadvertently on February 26 by the state-run Ria Novosti news agency, which prematurely celebrates Russia’s victory in the war against Ukraine, it states that while Ukraine’s statehood will not be abolished, it will be “restructured, restored and returned to its natural state as part of the Russian world.”
Which points of contention preceded the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022?
Reports of a massive Russian military incursion along Ukraine’s external borders began as early as the fall of 2021. At that time, Russia denied any attack plans and accused NATO of increased activity in the region. By December 2021, Russia had published a draft of a so-called “security agreement” agreement with the U.S. and NATO.
The draft called for the withdrawal of all NATO troops from Eastern European countries that had joined since 1999 and a ban on admission of successor states to the Soviet Union, which was dissolved in 1991. The United States and other NATO countries rejected this demand as a basis for negotiations. A recurrent point of contention between Russia and NATO is Russia’s accusation that NATO partners made binding commitments to the Soviet Union or Russia in the 1990s not to expand NATO further eastward. NATO denies this.
In the meantime, several observers objected that Putin was not at all concerned with NATO’s expansion plans. Instead, the reforms under the rule of law and the establishment of a functioning democracy in Ukraine pose a political risk to the authoritarian regime in Moscow. Ukraine’s westward orientation also means a loss of Russia’s sphere of influence.
In a lengthy essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” Vladimir Putin effectively denied Ukraine’s right to exist in the summer of 2021. Diplomacy efforts to resolve the crisis were unsuccessful. On the evening of February 21, Russia announced recognition of the so-called “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which has been contested since 2014.
The next night, the Russian troops moved into the territory, which is part of Ukraine under international law. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin complained of alleged human rights violations against the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine and spoke of a “genocide.” Internationally, this has been seen as a propaganda claim. The “People’s Republics” asked Russia on February 23 for “military assistance” against alleged aggression by Ukraine. On the morning of February 24, the Russian attack began.
Which events have shaped Ukrainian-Russian relations since the mass demonstrations in 2013/14?
Beginning on November 21, 2013, there were protests in Kyiv against the then Ukrainian government under President Viktor Yanukovych, who was seen as close to the Kremlin. The reason for this has initially been the refusal to ratify the EU Association Agreement. The then government took violent action against the demonstrators.
In the months that followed, protests erupted en masse throughout the country, particularly in Kyiv. On Independence Square in the city center (Ukrainian: Maidan Nesaleshnosti), there were bloody clashes with special police units in which more than 100 demonstrators died. By February 21, 2014, Yanukovych resigned from office and fled Ukraine.
Just a few days later, Russian special forces began to occupy the Crimean peninsula. They established a new regional government. On March 6, 2014, the regional parliament decided to join Crimea in the Russian Federation. Simultaneously, on March 16, they scheduled a referendum in which the majority Russian-speaking population was to decide on the future status of Crimea.
Overall, over 95 percent are said to have voted in favor of annexation to Russia. That referendum has not been recognized internationally. The Russian Human Rights Council, working for Vladimir Putin, cast doubt on the plausibility of the voting results in a report. Russia has considered Crimea part of its own territory since ratifying an accession treaty on March 21, 2014. On the international level, Crimea’s “accession” to the Russian Federation is judged to be an annexation in violation of international law. Those events marked a historical rupture in Russian-Ukrainian relations.
Also, in the spring of 2014, riots broke out in eastern and southern Ukraine. Pro-Russian separatists proclaimed so-called “people’s republics” in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. There were violent clashes. In summer 2014, a war began in eastern Ukraine that has lasted to the present day and has so far claimed 14,000 lives.
It is regarded as very likely that the Russian army actively intervened in this conflict with regular forces from August 2014 at the latest. Russia itself has always denied direct involvement. From this point on, Ukraine’s army increasingly went on the defensive. During the Battle of Ilovaysk from August 10 to September 2, 2014, Ukraine’s forces were ambushed, and hundreds of people died within a few days.
How did the international community react to Russia’s wartime actions?
Before the war broke out, two UN Security Council emergency meetings were held. As late as the evening of February 23, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on Vladimir Putin to withhold his troops, to no avail. A resolution of the UN Security Council against the invasion of Ukraine failed on the evening of February 25 at a new meeting of the body solely due to Russia’s veto.
An emergency session of the UN General Assembly was then convened based on UN Resolution 377 A – the first time this has happened in the 21st century and only the eleventh time ever since 1950. The Assembly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on March 2 by a vote of 141 to 5 – with only Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, and Russia and Syria opposing the resolution, while 35 countries abstained, including China. Sanctions policy against Russia
Beginning as early as 2014, the EU, the U.S. and other countries imposed sanctions against representatives of the Russian state and Russian business that remain in effect today. Following the invasion of Ukraine, further sanctions followed, aiming to weaken the Russian economy and isolate representatives of the Russian state.
On February 25, 2022, the EU adopted a package of measures aimed at, among other things, preventing Russian state-owned companies from refinancing in the EU and cutting off banks from EU financial markets. In addition, Russian state officials were also personally sanctioned; for example, the assets of Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were frozen. Switzerland also announced on February 28 that it would adopt the EU sanctions package. The United States on February 25 restricted technology exports with Russia and announced measures against banks and billionaires close to the Kremlin.
The EU, the U.S., Canada and the U.K. also imposed sanctions on Russia’s central bank in late February. Accordingly, business transactions with the central bank are no longer to be permitted in the future. Before the attack on Ukraine, Russia had accumulated foreign currency reserves of $630 billion, but substantial parts of these are located abroad.
Those funds will be frozen. As a result, the ruble’s exchange rate collapsed, Russian stocks lost massive value. Finally, all countries in the EU, Great Britain, the U.S. and other nations have now denied Russian aircraft access to their airspace. As a result, international air traffic from Russia has been severely restricted.
So why did the Minsk Agreement, negotiated to bring peace to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, fail?
A ceasefire was negotiated in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in September 2014, with mediation by the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) and a series of agreements in the “Minsk Memorandum” (“Minsk I”). Five months later, in the Minsk Agreement (“Minsk II”), a package of measures to implement the agreements was agreed upon under the mediation of Germany and France.
For one thing, this related to the military conflict and the agreed ceasefire: a demarcation line with a buffer zone in which no heavy weapons were permitted was approved.
Secondly, a potential solution for the future status of the “people’s republics” was outlined. According to this, the areas controlled by the “separatists” were to be given a temporary special territorial status. Based on these temporary provisions, the plan was to hold regional elections supervised by the OSCE. On the first day after the elections, Ukraine would have regained full sovereignty over the territories of the “people’s republics” and Ukraine’s eastern border.
Most points from the Minsk Agreement were never implemented. Key points of contention over implementation remained the specific conditions for holding elections and the status of the “people’s republics” and the date by which Kyiv should regain complete control of its border with Russia. Whereas security interests were the primary concern for Ukraine, the “people’s republics” and Russia wanted the political measures to be implemented as quickly as possible.
Many people in Ukraine saw the Minsk Agreement as an agreement accepted only under the pressure of possible military defeat. However, it was never implemented. Nor were the regional elections, which had been agreed upon in 2015, held. The regional elections already agreed upon for 2015 and monitored by the OSCE also did not take place.
Along the demarcation line, meanwhile, the Minsk Agreement was broken many hundreds of times on some days. On the other hand, Russia also promoted the efforts of the two “people’s republics” to break away – for example, by issuing Russian passports to hundreds of thousands of citizens in these areas.
What is the significance of Russia’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent People’s Republics?
As of February 21, 2022, the so-called “people’s republics” in eastern Ukraine had not been recognized by any state in the world. According to international law, the area claimed by the regimes operating there still belongs to Ukraine; economically and politically, the two regional regimes depend on Moscow.
The recognition of the two territories by Russia means the de facto end of the Minsk peace process because all agreements for the future status of Donetsk and Luhansk become null and void. Russian professed that Ukraine would no longer gain control over the two territories. In a speech on February 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin also justified this decision by saying that the Ukrainian government was unwilling to implement the Minsk Agreement.
Which international law agreements is the Kremlin breaking with its war of aggression against Ukraine?
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has repeatedly denied Ukraine’s right to exist. In fact, he said, Ukraine was part of the “Russian world.” In early December 1991, Ukraine held a referendum after previously declaring independence, with more than 92 percent of citizens in favor of independence.
The recognition of existing borders and the will to resolve conflicts peacefully are central parts of the global security order. In the CSCE Helsinki Final Act of 1975, all the signatory countries, including the Soviet Union, committed themselves to the inviolability of borders, respect for the territorial integrity of other states, and renunciation of force. In 1990, the Charter of Paris reaffirmed these principles. The UN Charter also guarantees the inviolability of borders in Article 2 and also emphasizes that any use of force against the political independence of other states must be refrained from.
In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear weapons still stationed in the country from the time of the Soviet Union. In exchange, other signatory states-Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom-agreed to recognize and uphold Ukraine’s territorial and political integrity. In 2014, Russia already violated these provisions by annexing Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine.
In 1997, Russia had also signed the Russia-NATO Founding Act, which aimed to achieve further cooperation between the West and Moscow. Also, in this document, Russia pledged to respect the sovereignty and independence of other states.
Will Ukraine now join the European Union?
Under President Petro Poroshenko (in office from 2014 to 2019), accession to NATO and the EU was already written into the Ukrainian constitution as a goal in 2019. In March 2014, Ukraine signed an association agreement with the EU. It came into force on September 1, 2017. Under the 2019 election of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s policy of orientation toward the West has continued against the backdrop of the war in eastern Ukraine, which has been ongoing since 2014.
As recently as spring 2021, before his state visits to France and Germany, Zelenskyy pushed for early accession to NATO and the EU. However, neither the EU nor NATO actually wanted to commit to a realistic prospect of accession. Zelenskyy repeatedly criticized this attitude.
On February 28, 2022, Ukraine officially applied for accession to the European Union during the early days of the Russian invasion. While the European Parliament has spoken out in favor of Ukraine joining the EU, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made it clear that there was “still a long way to go” in this regard.
