Introduction
The local conflict in Ukraine between the current democratic government and Eastern Ukrainian separatists, supported by the Russian Federation, has continued for more than seven years, since April 2014. In February 2022, it turned into a disastrous full-scale war between Ukraine and the invading forces of the Russian Federation; the war is continuing now. Along with the Russian Armed Forces, there are forces of self-proclaimed states of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, which are considered temporarily occupied territories by Ukraine and other countries except for the Russian Federation.
Current Events and the Humanitarian Disaster in Ukraine
On February 24, 2022, Russia began its military invasion of Ukraine: after the direct command of President Vladimir Putin, its forces started to occupy and bomb Ukrainian cities. Belarus, a close ally of the Russian Federation, provided its territory as the ground for the invasion while rejecting its direct participation in the conflict. Before the invasion, Russia recognized the sovereignty of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, self-proclaimed states in Eastern Ukraine, not recognized by Ukraine and any other UN country in the world except Russia (Mackinnon et al., 2022). Casualties are heavy: at least several thousand soldiers have died from both sides, despite accurate losses being extremely hard to calculate now (Cooper & Schmitt, 2022). At least several hundred civilians are killed; still, the Ukrainian Army continues to resist the invasion and defend their country. NATO and EU countries help Ukraine with weapons and other equipment necessary to defend the country from the Russian Army.
The global community condemns the invasion: various countries and organizations break ties with Russian companies, and governmental, and non-governmental organizations. For example, scientific communities worldwide have stopped collaborating with the Russian National Academy of Sciences (Nature Editorial, 2022). Meanwhile, war threatens the global food market, as Ukraine has one of the most significant market shares, producing more than 10% of all crops worldwide (Houngbo, 2022). In that way, the conflict has brought problems to the whole world, but the most disastrous it is for both participating countries: the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
Thousands of refugees started to leave Ukraine right after the invasion; some of them had left before it, as signs of the soon invasion started to appear before the actual war. Nowadays, at the beginning of March 2022, there are more than a million Ukrainian refugees worldwide, mainly in EU countries such as Poland and Hungary (News Comment: 1 Million Refugees Have Fled Ukraine in a Week, 2022). They are mostly open to refugees, considering Ukraine as their ally and aiming to help its unfortunate citizens.
Before the Invasion
Long before the actual 2022 invasion, the conflict was continuously developing; its beginning was the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014 when Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich was deposed from his position. It resulted from large-scale protests against corruption and authoritarianism, which were parts of his rule, along with the desire of the Ukrainian people to build a more democratic and European-like country (Atake & Chinyere, 2021). After the Ukrainian revolution, Russia annexed Crimea, a part of the Ukrainian territory, motivating it by protecting Russians living there from the new nationalistic government (Atake & Chinyere, 2021). Then, a series of pro-Russian riots broke out in Eastern Ukraine, leading to the separatist movement and the self-proclamation of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic (Åtland, 2020). In that way, Ukraine became torn apart by internal conflicts orchestrated by Russia, which justified it as the “protection.”
In search for peace, at least temporal, Minsk Agreements about the ceasefire were developed between Ukraine and self-proclaimed people republics in 2015. While they helped stop the hot phase of the conflict, they were highly ineffective on a long-term scale, as both sides were unsatisfied with them (Sanders & Tuck, 2020). The Russian Federation refused to admit its official help to Donetsk and Luhansk republics until its official recognition in 2022, before the invasion (Åtland, 2020). Instead, it accused Ukraine of starting the civil war and threatening its citizens, living in republics, who do not accept the new government.
The Republic of Belarus, a close ally of the Russian Federation, remained mostly neutral at the initial state of the conflict in 2014. Directed by the authoritarian rule of Alexander Lukashenka, the Belarusian government condemned the Ukrainian revolution (Hansbury, 2020). Still, it remained neutral, did not support the Russian annexation of Crimea openly, and supported the Ukrainian territorial integrity. Everything changed in 2021 – 2022 when the country openly took the Russian side and then provided its territory for the invasion.
Meanwhile, Kremlin developed massive propaganda to show that the Ukrainian political regiment is dangerous for its people living in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The memories of the 1941 – 1945 Great Patriotic War between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were used to compare the new Ukrainian nationalistic government with the Nazis (McGlynn, 2018). While most well-educated Russians do not support such changes, they have no real influence on Putin’s government (Nikolayenko, 2019). Personalization technologies were widely used to show news that is beneficial for one side and harmful for another: for example, good news from Russia was combined with bad ones from Ukraine (Hosaka, 2019; Makhortykh & Bastian, 2020). Worth to be mentioned, however, that the Ukrainian side uses similar propaganda technologies to promote its positions. Before the invasion, there were several signs of approaching war, such as rising tensions between the Russian Federation and NATO and constant requests for security guarantees from the former (Oxford Analytica, 2022). Thus, feeling a lack of security, the Russian government decided to invade Ukraine to change its government by force and make it a pro-Russian country.
Conclusions
There are two main forces in the ongoing war, which are directly fighting: Ukraine and Russia, with both Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics on the Russian side. However, many other parties are also actively participating in the conflict: worth mentioning Belarus, which provides its territory for Russian forces, and NATO and EU countries, which support Ukrainian forces. Tensions between NATO and the Russian Federation are one of the main causes of the conflict: Russia considers NATO extension and the pro-NATO/pro-EU course of Ukraine a threat to its security (Chekov et al., 2019). Now, NATO and the EU supply Ukraine with food and weapon to help it resist the Russian Federation’s invasion; thus, the conflict will probably not be resolved in a short time.
Meanwhile, the war results are devastating: more than millions of refugees fled from Ukraine in the first week of a Russian invasion. Some cities are partly ruined, and casualties are already high; despite that, the war is continuing and probably will not end in the next couple of weeks. Millions of refugees are expected, and the first million is already fled into European Union and other countries. The Russian Federation is becoming a rogue state, being isolated and condemned by various organizations and countries worldwide, and its economy will probably collapse as well. Both primary sides of the conflict, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, may be considered as its victims, as their economies are falling, the population’s life qualities are worsening, and human rights are violated.
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