Ukrainian Geography: The Cross Road With Russia And NATO: Part#2

                                                                   

Ukraine's ties with the EU were what brought things to a head with Russia in 2013 — 14. President Yanukovych, under pressure from his Moscow friends, vetoed efforts to cement a closer financial connection with the EU in late 2013. Russia had been pressuring Ukraine to join the yet-to-be-formed EAEU. Many Ukrainians considered Yanukovych's choice as treason by a very flawed and inept administration, and it sparked national protests known as Euromaidan.

Putin described the Euromaidan uprising, which deposed Yanukovych, as a Western-backed "extreme uprising" that risked the ethnic Russian majority in Crimea. (Western pioneers justified this as unjustified propagation reminiscent of the Soviet period.) As a result, Putin requested a covert invasion of Crimea, which he subsequently justified as a rescue operation. "Everything has an endpoint. Furthermore, our western allies have gone too far in Ukraine, "Putin announced in March 2014, formalizing the extension.

Putin used a similar tale to justify his support of rebels in southeastern Ukraine, another region with a large number of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. He referred to the region as Novorossiya (New Russia), a name that dates back to eighteenth-century beautiful Russia. Provocative Russian EUrs, particularly certain Russian security administration professionals, are said to have played a key role in transforming the region's anti-Eurymedon separatist tendencies into a resistance. Nonetheless, unlike in Crimea, Russia remained to authoritatively deny its involvement in the Donbas conflict until it launched its more extended invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Why did Russia launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022? Some Western analysts believe Russia's 2022 strike will be the pinnacle of the Kremlin's growing hatred for NATO's post-Cold War foray into former Soviet territory. Russian pioneers, including Putin, have stated that the US and NATO have repeatedly broken agreements made in the mid-1990s not to expand the coalition into the old Soviet ally. They see NATO's extension during Russia's chaotic era as a humiliating burden over which they can do little except observe.

In the weeks leading up to NATO's 2008 summit, President Vladimir Putin warned US negotiators that bringing Ukraine into the alliance "would constitute a dangerous demonstration toward Russia." Months later, Russia fought with Georgia, demonstrating Putin's willingness to use force for his country's sake. (While some observers accused Georgia of launching the alleged August War, Russia was condemned for inflating threats.)

Despite remaining a nonmember, Ukraine built ties with NATO in the years preceding the 22nd attack. Ukraine participated in annual military exercises with the coalition and, in 2022, became one of only six upgraded open-door accomplices, a unique position for the alliance's closest nonmember allies. Furthermore, Kyiv confirmed its intention to finally gain full NATO membership.

In the weeks leading up to its strike, Russia made several key security demands of the US and NATO, including a halt in the expansion of the alliance, a wait for Russian approval for particular NATO institutions, and the elimination of US nuclear weapons from Europe. Collusion pioneers said that they were open to new discretion but were hesitant to investigate closing NATO's doors to new persons.

"While we debate a Ukraine emergency in the United States, from the Russian perspective, this is an emergency in European security design," CFR's Thomas Graham told Arms Control Today on February 22o22. "Also, the fundamental problem they must address is the transformation of European security engineering as it currently stands to something more beneficial to Russian interests."

According to various experts, the main driving factor for Putin was his fear that Ukraine would continue to develop into a cutting-edge, Western-style majority rule government, which would unavoidably undermine his dictatorial system in Russia and run his expectations of rebuilding a Russia-driven range of prominence in Eastern Europe. "'[Putin] must weaken and frighten Ukraine,' writes history expert Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic. "He believes Ukraine's majority-rule government will fall short.

He predicts that the Ukrainian economy will collapse. He feels that unidentified financial backers should go. He requires his neighbors in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and even Poland and Hungary to doubt if a majority rule government would ever be acceptable, in the long run, in their countries as well."

What are Russia's objectives in Ukraine? Putin's Russia has been described as a revanchist country eager to reclaim its former status and prestige. "It was always Putin's goal to restore Russia as an amazing force in northern Eurasia," writes Gerard Toal, an international relations professor at Virginia Tech, in his book Near Abroad. "The ultimate goal was not to re-create the Soviet Union, but rather to restore Russia's remarkable status."

By retaining Crimea in 2014. Russia solidified its grip on important traction on the Black Sea. Russia may project influence deeper into the Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa, where it has traditionally had limited impact, with a larger and more sophisticated military force there. Some analysts argue that Western countries failed to impose major consequences on Russia as a result of its annexation of Crimea, which they claim further increased Putin's determination to engage military might in pursuit of his foreign policy objectives. Russia's crucial additions in the Donbas were more careful before its strike in 2022. Supporting rebels has temporarily increased Russia's bargaining leverage over Ukraine.

In July 2021, Putin published what many Western foreign policy experts considered a worrisome paper explaining his dubious thoughts on Russia and Ukraine's shared past. Among other things, Putin described Russians and Ukrainians as "one individuals" who share "the same verifiable and unearthly space."

Over time, Russia built a large number of troops near the Ukrainian border and eventually joined Belarus in military activity. Putin requested a full-scale attack in February 2022, crossing a force of exactly 200,000 soldiers into the Ukrainian area from the south (Crimea), east (Russia), and north (Belarus), attempting to hold onto significant urban communities, including the capital Kyiv, and dismiss the public authority. Putin stated that the broad goals were to "de-Nazify" and "de-mobilize" Ukraine.

Regardless, in the early stages of the invasion, Ukrainian forces marshaled a strong opposition that succeeded in impeding the Russian troops in a variety of regions, particularly around Kyiv. According to several guard examiners, Russian authorities have experienced low confidence, horrible coordinated elements, and an illogical military process that recognized Ukraine would collapse quickly and easily.

According to a few Western observers, Moscow might drop its goals and seek to cut out areas of southern Ukraine, such as the Kherson district, by March, given the unexpected tragedies it inflicted on the battlefield.

Russia might try to use these freshly connected regions as negotiation instruments in its dealings with Ukraine, which could raise expectations regarding Kyiv's involvement in the EU and NATO. Others warned that the attacks on Kyiv obscured any of Moscow's examples of a shift in military tasks from the city.

What were the United States' requirements in Ukraine? Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Washington pushed Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to hand over their nuclear arsenals so that Russia could keep the former alliance's weapons. Simultaneously, the US rushed to assist Russia's fragile majority-rules government. A few notable eyewitnesses at the time argued that the US was too late in its romance with Russia and that it should have focused more on building international pluralism in the rest of the former Soviet Union.