Putin’s war on Ukraine, explained

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a “special military operation.” But the scale of the attack shows this is a war — after a week of fighting, it has already caused hundreds of civilian casualties and forced more than half a million Ukrainians to flee their homes.

Ukraine and Russia’s conflict goes back at least to 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and Russian-backed separatist forces took over parts of southeastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. But to understand the full context behind the invasion, it’s important to go even further back, to the time when Europe’s current divisions began, and see how that shaped Europe’s power balance today.

Further reading:

• More information on the human impact this war is having on the ground by the Human Rights Watch
• Latest information on the displacement of Ukrainians
• On the ground daily updates from the Institute for the Study of War
• Daily updates from the International Crisis Group
• A detailed look at Ukraine’s decision to pull out from the 2013 EU agreement
• Understand the annexation of Crimea and what that meant for Ukraine
• Putin v. the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia by Samuel A. Green and Graeme B. Robertson

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