Tensions between Ukraine and Russia are at their highest in years, with reports of a Russian troop build-up near Russia’s borders with Ukraine.
Russia has been building up its military forces close to the Ukrainian border. According to Ukrainian officials and those in Western nations, Moscow has amassed more than 92,000 troops around 300 km from the Russian border with the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
What’s the history of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?
Tensions between Ukraine and Russia, both former Soviet states, escalated in late 2013 over a landmark political and trade deal with the European Union. After the pro-Russian then-President, Viktor Yanukovych, suspended the talks — reportedly under pressure from Moscow — weeks of protests in Kiev erupted into violence.
Then, in March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, an autonomous peninsula in southern Ukraine with strong Russian loyalties, on the pretext that it was defending its interests and those of Russian-speaking citizens. First, thousands of Russian-speaking troops, dubbed “little green men” and later acknowledged by Moscow to be Russian soldiers, poured into the Crimean peninsula.
Within days, Russia completed its annexation in a referendum that was slammed by Ukraine and most of the world as illegitimate.
Shortly afterward, pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions declared their independence from Kiev, prompting months of heavy fighting. Despite Kiev and Moscow signing a peace deal in Minsk in 2015, brokered by France and Germany, there have been repeated ceasefire violations.
According to the latest UN figures, there have been more than 3,000 conflict-related civilian deaths in eastern Ukraine since March 2014. The European Union and the US have imposed a series of measures in response to Russia’s actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, including economic sanctions targeting individuals, entities, and specific sectors of the Russian economy.
What Russia says
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that Russia plans on invading Ukraine, insisting Russia does not pose a threat to anyone and that the country moving troops across its territory should not be cause for alarm.
Moscow sees the growing support for Ukraine from NATO — in terms of weaponry, training, and personnel — as a threat to its security. It has also accused Ukraine of boosting its troop numbers in preparation for an attempt to retake the Donbas region, an allegation Ukraine has denied. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for specific legal agreements that would rule out any further NATO expansion eastwards towards Russia’s borders, saying the West has not lived up to its previous verbal assurances. Putin has also said that NATO deploying sophisticated weapons in Ukraine, such as missile systems, would be crossing a “red line” for Russia, amid concern in Moscow that Ukraine is being increasingly armed by NATO powers.
What Ukraine says?
Ukraine’s government insists that Moscow cannot prevent Kiev from building closer ties with NATO if it chooses.”Russia cannot stop Ukraine from getting closer with NATO and has no right to have any say in relevant discussions,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, in response to Russian calls for NATO to halt its eastward expansion.
What does the United States say?
The US and its NATO allies have “deep concerns” regarding the “aggressive posture” taken recently by Russia towards Ukraine, a strategic ally of the US, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at an OSCE summit in Sweden.
The meeting between Blinken and Lavrov U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Moscow of the “severe costs” Russia would pay if it invaded Ukraine, urging his Russian counterpart on Thursday to seek a diplomatic exit from the crisis. Blinken delivered the warning to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at what he called a “candid” meeting in Stockholm and said it was likely that Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin would speak soon.