Explained: Why Russia is invading Ukraine

Russian forces took the Black Sea city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, a significant victory for Moscow after a string of military setbacks, and reportedly surrounded surround Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov that sits between Russian-controlled Crimea and breakaway Donbas republics.

The US, Britain, Europe and Canada had announced sanctions on Russia including blocking certain lenders' access to the SWIFT international payment system.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists. It denies targeting civilians although there have been widespread reports of civilian casualties and the shelling of residential areas.

Bombing in Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million people, has left its centre a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris. Russian forces have captured the town of Balakliya near the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine

The military move by Russian President Vladimir Putin has left many people looking for information on how and why the conflict started. Here are answers to some key questions.

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Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

Putin nurses a deep sense of grievance over the loss of Russia’s power and influence since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ukraine was formerly part of the Soviet Union but declared its independence in 1991.

Having a prosperous, modern, independent and democratic European state bordering Russia was perceived as posing a threat to Russia’s autocratic regime. If Ukrainians succeeded in fully reforming their country along lines of other western democracies, it would set a bad precedent for former Soviet countries and serve as an example for Russians who want a more democratic country.

Putin also perceives that western democracies are in a weak and particularly vulnerable state — thanks in part due to Russian efforts to create discord and sow divisions in Europe and North America abroad — making this an opportune time to launch a major military adventure.

Why do Russia, the US and Europe care so much about Ukraine?

Both Russia and the West see Ukraine as a potential buffer against each other.

Russia considers Ukraine within its natural sphere of influence. Most of it was for centuries part of the Russian Empire, many Ukrainians are native Russian speakers and the country was part of the Soviet Union until winning independence in 1991.

Russia was unnerved when an uprising in 2014 replaced Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president with an unequivocally Western-facing government.

Most former Soviet republics and allies in Europe had already joined the European Union or NATO. Ukraine’s lurch away from Russian influence felt like the final death knell for Russian power in Eastern Europe.

To Europe and the United States, Ukraine matters in part because they see it as a bellwether for their own influence, and for Russian intentions in the rest of Europe. Ukraine is not part of the European Union or NATO. But it receives considerable financial and military support from Europe and the United States. If Russia invades, it suggests that Moscow might feel empowered to raise tensions with other former Soviet republics that are now members of the Western alliance, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Any Russian incursion would also further threaten US dominance over world affairs. By winning the Cold War, the United States established great influence over the international order, but that influence has waned in the past decade, and a Russian invasion might accelerate that process. By reinvigorating NATO, the United States may hope to slow that process down, or even reverse it.

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How ‘Russian’ is Ukraine?

According to the last full census taken in 2001, 17.3 per cent of the citizens of independent Ukraine identified themselves as ethnic Russians. This was a decline of almost five percentage points from 1989, reflecting in part an out-migration of Russians after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

There was also a change of identification among Ukrainians who had claimed to be ethnically Russian in the late Soviet period when it was socially and economically advantageous to do so, but reverted to their Ukrainian identity when Ukraine became independent.

Since 2001, the numerical influence of ethnic Russians in Ukraine diminished even further, as a result of the annexation of Crimea and the creation of the two separatist “republics” in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Significantly, even in the Donbas, where ethnic Russians form a substantial minority, they do not outnumber ethnic Ukrainians.

Somewhat confusing the situation is the fact that most Ukrainians are able to speak or easily understand both Russian and Ukrainian. For many Ukrainians, especially in the south and eastern regions of the country, Russian is the first language.

Russian is widely used throughout large parts of Ukraine and it is not unusual for people to easily and even unconsciously move back and forth between languages. Nor is it unusual that many Russian speakers are fervent Ukrainian patriots, just as significant numbers of ethnic Russians are fiercely loyal citizens of Ukraine.

Russians and Russian speakers are not persecuted or discriminated against in Ukraine, even as the Ukrainian state — and increasingly Ukrainian citizens themselves — work to encourage fluency and the use of Ukrainian in daily life after centuries of linguistic and cultural Russification.

Finally, a large number of Ukrainians have ties to Russians and Russia, through mixed marriages, work, professional relations and longstanding friendships.

Sadly, many of these relations have been strained in recent years due to the Putin government’s hostility towards Ukraine and the Russian media’s relentless and baseless attacks on Ukrainians. The situation has resulted in contacts being terminated for political reasons as a result of changing attitudes towards Russia as a whole.

The vast majority of Ukrainians until recently had a positive image of Russia, but a growing number now have a critical or skeptical attitude to Russia. The current conflict is certain to make things worse.

Also read: Can Vladimir Putin be prosecuted for war crimes in Ukraine?

Why does Putin say Ukraine isn’t a real country?

In a televised speech days before the invasion, Putin suggested that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia.”

Putin has inherited much of his world view from the Russian-chauvinist and Russocentric traditions of the former imperial and Soviet Russian regimes. His Ukrainophobic attitudes can be attributed in part to his being steeped in deeply rooted feelings of both Russian superiority and resentment towards Ukrainians who have consistently asserted their distinct identity.

Russia has for four centuries tried to fully subjugate Ukrainian lands and to subdue the Ukrainian nation by means of laws and policies designed to undermine and suppress the Ukrainian language and culture, while at the same time privileging Russians in Ukraine.

Russia has often resorted to using brutal force to prevent Ukraine from pursuing greater autonomy as well as outright independence, using invasions, ruthlessly crushing rebellions, exiling hundreds of thousands to Siberia and the Far North, starving millions in a genocidal famine, and simultaneously imprisoning and executing legions of gifted artists, intellectuals, spiritual leaders and political activists, who dared to challenge Russian dominance over the country.

As various attempts by Ukrainians to establish an independent state were thwarted by Russia and by other foreign oppressors, Putin has repeatedly sought to disparage Ukraine’s successful declaration of independence in 1991 and is determined to put an end to it.

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Didn’t Russia already invade parts of Ukraine?

Yes. After the uprising in 2014, Russian troops wearing unmarked uniforms invaded Crimea, a strategically important peninsula on the Black Sea. In a referendum condemned as illegal by most of the world, the region then voted by an overwhelming majority to join Russia.

Later in 2014, pro-Russian separatists backed by Russian troops and military hardware captured parts of eastern Ukraine, setting up two rebel republics — in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions — that remain unrecognized by any other state.

Fighting continues today between the Ukrainian state and the separatists. To many Ukrainians, the threat of a broader Russian intervention in Ukraine is therefore merely the latest episode of an unfinished eight-year war. And that war is likely to continue, whether Russia invades in the coming days or not.

Why is Ukraine so vulnerable?

Though given money and arms by the West, Ukraine is not actually a NATO member and so cannot count on the direct US military support and of US allies. Its military, though the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in Western aid in recent years, is still no match for Russia’s.

It is also surrounded by Russian allies and proxies — and by Russia itself. Russian troops are massed not only along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia but also along the Belarusian border, just over 50 miles north of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Russian troops are also stationed in Transnistria, a small and unrecognized breakaway region from Moldova, to Ukraine’s west. If Russian troops invaded from some or all of these locations, Ukraine’s army might be stretched too thin to mount an effective defense.

Would-be allies like Germany may also be wary of enacting economic measures to deter Russia. Europe is highly dependent on Russian fuel, and Russia is a major trading partner of Germany.

(Compiled from agency inputs)

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