Mr. Putin has described the Soviet disintegration as a catastrophe that robbed Russia of its rightful place among the world’s great powers and put it at the mercy of a predatory West. He has spent his 22 years in power rebuilding Russia’s military and reasserting its geopolitical clout.
The Russian president calls NATO’s expansion menacing, and the prospect of Ukraine joining it a major threat to his country. As Russia has grown more assertive and stronger militarily, his complaints about NATO have grown more strident. He has repeatedly invoked the specter of American ballistic missiles and combat forces in Ukraine, though U.S., Ukrainian and NATO officials insist there are none.
Mr. Putin has also insisted that Ukraine and Belarus are fundamentally parts of Russia, culturally and historically. He holds considerable sway over Belarus, and talks about some form of reunification with Russia have gone on for years.
But East-West relations worsened drastically in early 2014, when mass protests in Ukraine forced out a president closely allied with Mr. Putin. Russia swiftly invaded and annexed Crimea, part of Ukraine. Moscow also fomented a separatist rebellion that took control of part of the Donbas region of Ukraine, in a war that still grinds on, having killed more than 13,000 people.
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What Does Vladimir Putin Want?
In a lengthy essay penned in July 2021, Putin referred to Russians and Ukrainians as "one people," and suggested the West had corrupted Ukraine and yanked it out of Russia's orbit through a "forced change of identity."
That type of historical revisionism was on full display in Putin's emotional and grievance-packed address to the nation announcing his decision to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, while casting doubt on Ukraine's own sovereignty.
But Ukrainians, who in the last three decades have sought to align more closely with Western institutions like the European Union and NATO, have pushed back against the notion that they are little more than the West's "puppet."
In fact, Putin's efforts to bring Ukraine back into Russia's sphere have been met with a backlash, with several recent polls showing that a majority of Ukrainians now favor membership of the US-led transatlantic military alliance.
In December, Putin presented the US and NATO with a list of security demands. Chief among them was a guarantee that Ukraine will never enter NATO and that the alliance rolls back its military footprint in Eastern and Central Europe -- proposals that the US and its allies have repeatedly said are non-starters.
Putin indicated he was not interested in lengthy negotiations on the topic. "It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now," he said at his annual news conference late last year. "Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep."
High-level talks between the West and Russia wrapped in January without any breakthroughs. The standoff left Europe's leaders to engage in a frenzy of shuttle diplomacy, exploring whether a negotiating channel established between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict in Ukraine's east -- known as the Normandy Format talks -- could provide an avenue for calming the current crisis.
In a news conference with the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 16, Putin repeated unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine is carrying out a "genocide" against Russian speakers in the Donbas region and called for the conflict to be resolved through the Minsk peace progress -- echoing similar rhetoric that was used as a pretext for annexing Crimea.
But less than a week later, after Russia's upper house of parliament approved the deployment of military forces outside the country on February 22, Putin told reporters that the Minsk agreements "no longer exist," adding: "What is there to implement if we have recognized these two entities?"
The agreements, known as Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 -- which were hammered out in the Belarusian capital in a bid to end a bloody in eastern Ukraine -- have never been fully implemented, with key issues remaining unresolved.
Moscow and Kyiv have long been at odds over key elements of the peace deal, the second of which was inked in 2015 and lays out a plan for reintegrating the two breakaway republics into Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently stated that he did not like a single point of the Minsk accords, which require dialogue on local elections in the Russian-backed separatist regions and -- although unclear in what sequence -- would also restore the Ukrainian government's control over its eastern borders. Critics say the agreement could give Moscow undue sway over Ukrainian politics.
Putin previously responded in blunt terms by saying that regardless of whether Zelensky likes the plan, it must be implemented. "Like it or don't like it, it's your duty, my beauty," Putin said in a news conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. Zelensky, a former comedian and TV star, won a 2019 election in a landslide on promises to end the war in Donbas, but little has changed. Responding to a question about Putin's stark, undiplomatic language, Zelensky responded in Russian, saying bluntly: "We are not his."
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Where Has Russia Attacked
Russian forces crossed Ukraine's borders early on Thursday morning (24.02.2022) and began bombing military targets near big cities.
Air strikes continued overnight and into the early hours of Friday (25.02.2022), with attacks being reported across the country - including on the capital Kyiv.
Russian tanks were filmed on the outskirts of Kyiv on Friday morning. A second night of attacks followed with heavy gunfire and explosions in parts of the capital.
A number of civilian areas have been targeted, including one apartment complex outside of Kharkiv - a city of 1.4 million people in north-eastern Ukraine.
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What’s At Stake For Europe?
At stake for Europe is the security structure that has helped keep the peace on the continent since World War II. Europeans were initially divided over how to respond to various forms of Russian aggression, and the conflict laid bare the fractures within the European Union and NATO. But outrage over Mr. Putin’s aggression has helped foster a unified front, and the E.U. unveiled penalties that they described as unprecedented for the bloc in terms of scale and reach.
Europe has important trade ties with Russia, and stands to lose far more than the United States from sanctions. It is also dependent on Russian gas supplies, a weakness that Mr. Putin has exploited in past disputes.
Europe lost an invaluable negotiator with Moscow after the departure of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in the east, speaks fluent Russia, and had developed a good working relationship with the Russian president. Her successor Olaf Scholz, has tried to take on a leadership role in the crisis that escalated soon after his election, halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline that would link his country with Russia — one of the strongest moves yet by the West to punish the Kremlin.
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What Does The War In Ukraine Mean For The UK?
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK "cannot and will not just look away" at Russia's "hideous and barbaric" attack on Ukraine.
He said the UK and its allies will launch a "massive package" of sanctions - commercial and financial penalties - to "hobble" Russia's economy.
He also tried to reassure the British public by promising to do "everything to keep our country safe" and work with allies "for however long it takes" to restore Ukraine's independence.
As a result of the conflict, oil prices have surged past $100 (£75) a barrel to hit their highest level for more than seven years, which will impact already-rising petrol prices in the UK.
How is the United States Responding?
In early December, President Biden made clear that his administration was not considering sending troops to fight for Ukraine since, among other reasons, Ukraine is not a member of the NATO alliance and does not come under its commitment to collective defense.
Instead, the United States has sent anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons to Ukraine, increased the American military presence in NATO countries that border Russia, and ordered an additional 7,000 troops to Europe. The Pentagon also ordered the deployment of an armored brigade combat team to Germany to reassure skittish NATO allies in Eastern Europe. Administration officials also warned that the United States could throw its weight behind an Ukrainian insurgency.
But the real cudgel is financial.
Before the invasion, Mr. Biden threatened Mr. Putin with “economic consequences like none he’s ever seen.” Afterward, he began to put them in place. Mr. Biden, vowing to turn Mr. Putin into a “pariah,” has announced tough new sanctions aimed at cutting off Russia’s largest banks and some oligarchs, from much of the global financial system and preventing the country from importing American technology critical to its defense, aerospace and maritime industries. The administration has also issued sanctions against the company behind an energy pipeline connecting Russia to Germany.
Mr. Biden has also said the United States was freezing trillions of dollars in Russian assets, including the funds controlled by Russian elites and their families, making them pay for what the American president called “a premeditated attack” against a free nation in Europe.
Western governments have also vowed to freeze assets belonging to Mr. Putin, but very little is known about what he owns and where it might be.
The Biden administration could also institute sanctions that could deprive Russians of their beloved next-generation phones, laptops and other gadgets.
Sources: The Independent | BBC | CNN | NY Times
Credits: The Times
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