When did the Russia-Ukraine Conflict start? To find the answer, First of all, you need to understand the reason for the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Ukraine is crucial for Russia from a strategic point of view. As you see on the map, Ukraine is surrounded by Russia and Europe from the other side. Europe, of which some countries are members of NATO. The USA leads NATO and the USA, with which Russia has a longstanding enmity.
The border dispute between Russia and Ukraine has existed for decades. We all know that Crimea, which was earlier a part of Ukraine, is now occupied by Russia. The two regions of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, make up the Donbas region.
When did the Russia-Ukraine Conflict start? let’s Head into History a bit
Ukraine used to be part of the Soviet Union. After the soviet union’s fall on 24 August 1991, Ukraine was declared independent.
The social and cultural root of Ukraine is Russia; there is no doubt about it. Russian is also spoken in Ukraine, especially in the eastern part adjacent to Russia. The areas adjacent to the border of any two countries are almost the same. The language and cultural things are identical in the border areas. That is why Ukrainian ethnicity is followed by Russian ethnicity.
It has been seen that The areas adjacent to the border are influenced by other countries, which sometimes give birth to separatists and armed groups. The same thing happened in the eastern part of Ukraine. There is a constant struggle going on between pro-Russian people and Ukrainian forces.
Russia supports Russian-spoken Ukraine’s northeastern regions. If seen from a geopolitical viewpoint, it’s natural. The Ukrainian and Russian culture is identical. There are petty differences that can be known if you look closely. Ukrainian ethnic people do not like the pro-Russian people of the eastern part.
The last three presidents had a decade of the term. Although Ukraine has seen seven presidents so far, most conflicts have happened with these three presidents. Now, let us understand the political parties of Ukraine in order to understand the conflict. Till now, there have been three parties in Ukraine. 1st category part is Pro-Western, Pro-North, and basically, this party is Anti-Russian.
2nd category party is pro-Russian and does not like Western and EU culture.
The 3rd category of the party is Pro Russia and the Soviet Union. This party gives most of its attention to local and regional areas. In Ideology, it is called the Ideology of Regionalism.
At present, President Zelensky comes from 1st category party. His party inclines towards the West. The President who was before him, Petro Poroshenko, belonged to the same category as the European Solidarity Party.
President Viktor Yanukovich had a term from 2010 to 2014. His party was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1980. After the fall of the USSR, he joined the Party of Regions. In 2014, he again changed the party and merged with the Platform for Life party, a pro-Soviet culture.
The story begins with his presidency. He held his presidency from 2010. In the very first year, his government made decisions that were exasperating to the people of Ukraine. In April, he signed an agreement with the Russian government to cut natural gas by 30 percent and 25 years of lease extension of the Russian naval base in Ukraine. The Ukrainian public strongly opposed this agreement. The US also opposed it. Dmitry Medvedev was The Russian President, and Vladimir Putin was the prime minister.
America’s interest was always there in Ukraine. America was the first country to recognize Ukraine. It was the US that helped contain the Chornobyl meltdown of 1986. Then, in 1994, the US also helped in the deal to end the nuclear Arsenal between Ukraine and Russia. In the same year, Ukraine became part of non-proliferation. With NATO’s closeness, Ukraine began to grow. Russia never liked that.
People did not like the deal between Ukraine and Russia in 2010. President Yanukovich amended Article 111 of the Ukraine Constitution, which contained the President’s Removal Regulation. This act made President Yanukovich’s image negative. People started opposing it.
In 2011 and 2012, there were multiple corruption charges against Viktor Yanukovich. which made his image negative, And his popularity began to decline. He signed the European Association (EUAA) agreement as damage control. And in November of the same year, this agreement was withdrawn, which led to a riot. And it turned into the Presidential Removal Movement, also known as the Euromaidan movement.
Panicked, Ukraine’s parliament passed the Anti-Law Protest Act, making people even angrier. The furious people occupied the government buildings. This riot forced the government to sign the Agreement for Settlement of Political Crisis.
In February 2014, a few days after the signing of this deal, President Yanukovich fled to Russia. He was later removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian Parliament. Then Ukraine got a temporary government.
Now, let’s come to the 2014-2019 presidential term. This term, Petro Poroshenko of the European Solidarity Party was elected President. He was also the Opposing Leader and a Billionaire during the Euromaidan movement.
Between 2013 and 2014, when the political drama was going on in Ukraine’s capital, protests took place in Crimea and the Russian Pro areas of Ukraine. Strategically, Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
The Russian Troops built their government on the Crimean Parliament by breaking it down, and then Russia also ran a referendum known as the Crimea Referendum. As we know, Russian is spoken more in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. And in this referendum, 90 percent of the people voted for the Russian Federation. On 16 March 2014, Crimea became part of Russia.
In 2014 alone, three big things happened in Ukraine. First, the Euromaidan Movement ended. Second, the new President was elected, and third, Russia annexed Crimea.
At that time, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a big statement. He said that Russia would protect the rights of the people of Crimea and the Eastern part of Ukraine, where there are pro-Russian people.
After President Putin’s statement, the people of the Southeastern part of Crimea and the rest of the country became more attracted to Russia. This statement of President Putin made a lot of impact, and there was an ethnic division in the eastern part of Ukraine. And these regions were Donetsk and Luhansk. These two regions have been all over the news in the past few months. Both these regions are also called the Donbas region.
There were daily skirmishes between the Separatists and the Ukrainian military in these two regions. Russia was backing the Separatists. It has been said that Russia has been supplying Arms and Ammunition to the Separatists of the Donbas region. According to several big news, the Rebels had small arms, but they also had surface and air missiles. With the help of which the Rebels shot down a Ukrainian plane in 2014.
This incident gave rise to the International Crisis in which the European Union and the US were on one side, and on the other side was Russia. On 5 September 2014, France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine entered into the Size Fire Agreement, now known as the Minsk Agreement.
Germany and France represent the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Russia and Ukraine also signed an agreement with them. However, the cease-fire was violated in the Donbas region, and this agreement failed.
Again, in 2015, the Minsk 2 agreement was signed, but it also failed. It had some reason for its failure. What was it? Ukraine wanted Russia to stop supporting the Rebels and simultaneously remove all weapons systems.
The second thing should be the ceasefire. The third thing should be complete control of the Ukrainian government in the Donbas region. Russia also had a view that it wanted to have rights over the Donbas region. Because, according to Russian pro-Russian people, they wanted to be part of Russia. Ukraine was in no mood to let this happen as it had already lost a big part of it to Russia.
Donbas region is of different importance to Russia. Russia knew that Ukraine would not waste time joining the EU if everything were fine in Ukraine. Russia was also aware that as long as the Rebel of the Separatists continued, it would be difficult for Ukraine to join the European Union.
The story so far was from 2014-2019 in the term of President Petro Poroshenko. Now, coming to 2019.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict 2019
On 21 April 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected the new President of Ukraine. In October, he announced that he agreed to the Steinmeier formula, which is a peace proposal given by former German President Frank Watter Steinemer.
As per the formula, The Donbas region will have to be given self-governing status, and elections will have to be conducted, but before doing this, Ukraine had a condition that Russia should remove all heavy weapons systems and its troops from the Donbas region only then will there be local elections.
Russia disagreed and said that elections should be conducted first and autonomy should be given. Seeing there would be a risk of losing the Donbas region for Ukraine, it disagreed, and with that, Steinmeier’s formula failed.
Since pro-Russian parties are active in the Donbas region, it was difficult for Ukraine to win here anyway. Donbas’s being close to the capital, Kyiv, had also been badly affecting Ukraine’s domestic affairs. In just the last eight years, both these regions have completely transformed into the pro-Russian region under the influence of Russia.
If there were elections here, then the pro-Ukraine party could never have won. Now, it is the Direct Confrontation, which the whole world knows that Ukraine can’t win in front of Russia’s Firepower. To confront Russia, Ukraine will have to use the help of NATO, which has been in talks for years.
But it is a matter of wonder why the EU and NATO, who are so concerned about Ukraine, have not made it a part of their organization yet. However, some important reasons are not yet to give membership to Ukraine, perhaps because once part of the EU, a large population of Ukraine will migrate to Europe, which the EU doesn’t want. And the reason for not getting NATO membership is that, as we know, Russia had already reached Ukraine even before the invasion.
Becoming a member of NATO means a direct confrontation with Russia, which means deploying the NATO army to go to war with Russia. There is every possibility of having that in which the US could have suffered heavy losses. And it has just recently returned from Afghanistan, so it cannot afford a war with Nuclear state Russia by making Ukraine a part of NATO.
So far, you have known the history of the Russia and Ukraine conflict, now come in 2022. In the last few months, Russia tightened its armed forces by bringing it to the border of Ukraine, so there were speculations of war, yet experts said that the Russian military is just flexing its strength.
Then, Before 22 February, President Putin came live and gave a very long and wide statement about how Ukraine has roots in Russia. Ukraine is a part of Russia, and it is also said that no country should interfere.
Otherwise, you will have to face heavy concessions, and then By 22 February, you all must have known that Russia has divided both the region of Ukraine. And divided Ukraine into three parts.
Putin declared that Luhansk and Donetsk are now independent countries. Protecting them from the Ukrainian army is now Russia’s responsibility. Both these countries have been recognized by Russia internationally.
Still, Syria and Venezuela will recognize these two new countries written Pro Russian Countries undefined in the future. After this, the UK and the US started imposing connections with Russia. Russia has invaded Ukraine, and war has been reached in Kyiv.
